


I Will Not Let My Body Belong To The Dead

by soulshrapnel



Series: Playing With Fire [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: BDSM, Disability, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort But Mostly Hurt, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Minor Character Death, Please Do Not Ask Darth Vader About His Religion, Sith temple shenanigans, Space Fascist Disaster Boys, body autonomy issues, half a dozen unnecessary uses for blankets, sorry folks this one gets dark, tank vader but you're gonna have to wait a jillion chapters for it, too many mind probes for one fic honestly, touch starved, very impractical superweapons, what should i do if my boyfriend's sith master is abusing him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-10-12 01:21:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 132,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel
Summary: When Darth Vader's in, he's all in. He's committed to this relationship he has with Grand Moff Tarkin, and now he's determined to act on it in all the ways, including medically inadvisable ones. Tarkin isn't completely sure what he's unleashed, and judging from the way he's started to meddle again, neither is Palpatine.Stranded with an increasingly erratic Vader on what should have been a simple mission together, Tarkin finds himself enmeshed in Sith matters that he doesn't understand - and forced to ask, in a new way, just what sort of person his superhuman lover truly is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me, finishing up Sea Life of Scarif: "lalala, I don't know when I'll come back to this series. it could be a long time. I want to broaden my horizons and try other creative things. I'm fickle. I know there's more I'm interested in writing about these characters eventually, but first I want to...."
> 
> me, literally 2 weeks later: "........hi."
> 
> (the first step is admitting you have a problem.)
> 
> This might be the last big, multichapter work in the series, and some of the chapters might be slower to come out than before, but there's gonna be a lot in it. It's gonna have a few more moving parts than the other installments, which makes me nervous. I love these ridiculous murderboys more than I want to admit and I want to do right by them.
> 
> who am I kidding, I'm always nervous
> 
> here we go.

In the blackness of the throne room in the heart of the Imperial Palace, Darth Vader knelt before his master.

The guards and advisers had already been banished from the Emperor's presence. It was just the two of them, Vader genuflecting with his head bowed, Palpatine sitting in his understated throne. The room was not lightless; small beams of illumination came in through the round windows, and from various panels at the sides of the room. But its surfaces - the stone of the walls and floor, the carpet running up to the throne, the throne itself and Palpatine's black robe - were so dark even Vader's augmented vision could barely make out their details.

Palpatine dressed simply and somberly, as was the tradition for Sith Lords. No kingly finery for him, despite the literal worlds he ruled. Just black and a face-obscuring hood, and a visceral presence like cold dark smoke. Vader looked distinctive for medical reasons, but most Sith Lords did not bother with mere visual splendor. They made impressions not with clothing or jewels but with pure strength of hate.

Only Vader, in all the Empire, had the senses to see Palpatine the way he wished to be seen. Alone with him, Palpatine's visceral presence had become even more sinister than usual. Not just a coiling of hate-smoke, but whole lattices of it, an intricate work of art built from suffering. This had less to do with any actual change in Palpatine's mood, and more to do with what he allowed to be seen. He was not at his fullest manifestation, not the burning inhuman darkness that he used for formal ritual and for battle. But he was no longer quite the man he pretended to be, for his advisors and lackeys. He was Darth Sidious, master of the Sith, and he was here to deal with matters no mere moff or general could ever understand.

Palpatine hadn't yet told Vader the reason for this summons, but work assignments rarely required an in-person meeting. When he presented himself this way, it was mostly for religious instructions or punishments. And if he was about to punish Vader, then Vader knew why.

Vader had been doing new things recently. He had, not to put too fine a point on it, been going on dates. Palpatine had tolerated Vader having a sexual life for years, although it didn't entirely please him. And when Vader had finally fallen for someone hard enough to want to call it dating, Palpatine had acquiesced to that, too. Partly because the partner in question was Wilhuff Tarkin, the Grand Moff who'd been loyal and competent since long before the Empire's beginning. Palpatine trusted Tarkin not to lead Vader astray.

But their most recent date had been more intense than Vader expected. Tarkin had invited Vader to a secluded island on Scarif, hoping it would be a change from Vader's usual surroundings. They'd experimented with roles and forms of intimacy different from what their normal duties allowed. Vader had impulsively invited Tarkin into his meditation chamber to see him without his mask. And in the aftermath of that reckless decision, Vader had been forced to admit to himself that he was in love. Deeper than he'd ever been since Padmé; deeper than he'd thought was possible anymore. It had terrified him, and he'd given in to it anyway, with the reckless courage he'd always been known for.

Palpatine had certainly felt what happened; no such wrenching shift in Vader's emotions could go unnoticed by his master. The only question was how he would react.

The Sith Lord gestured lazily from his throne. "Rise, my friend. There is such fear in you today. I would halfway believe that you feel you have done something wrong."

"No, my master," Vader responded, gratefully standing. Vader was literally always in pain, but kneeling hurt his legs more than standing did. Palpatine was well aware of that; his mood could be judged by the length of time he kept Vader in each posture.

Palpatine regarded him, lounging, with something that might have passed for a look of concern. "There is no problem, then? Nothing you feel that you have to confess?"

Questions like that one were traps. Find something to confess to and he'd be punished for whatever it was. Refuse, and Palpatine _might_ let it go. Or might punish him harder for lying. Vader decided to split the difference. "No, my master. I have observed my duties and kept to the Dark Side. The relationship you allowed me to pursue has been on my mind; that is most likely what you feel. But it is no threat to you."

Palpatine made a small _hmf_ noise and sat up a little straighter. "Good," he said. "Good enough. We can move, then, to the topic of your next mission. Something has come up rather urgently, and I suspect it will require your skills."

Vader nodded. Maybe, after all, this would only be work and not punishments. Stranger things had happened. "What is your bidding?"

He was not immensely happy to be given work right now. He was supposed to be on Mustafar, with Tarkin. That was what he'd promised Tarkin back on Scarif. They'd been to his fortress there once before, but this time it would be different. In a meditation chamber, Vader could only take off his suit partway. But on Mustafar, he had a very specialized room with bacta tank, where he rested without his suit between missions. Where his body could be seen, even touched, in its entirety. He'd never wanted to do that with any other partner since his accident - he'd _had_ plenty of sex, in those intervening years, but only by using the Force. He wanted to share his real body with Tarkin now.

Which didn't mean he wasn't still nervous about it. Tarkin had reacted well to his face. Tarkin had touched his face, kissed him, and Vader had been more overwhelmed by that sensation than he'd thought possible. Mustafar would be... the same but even more. Probably. He wanted it with all the greed of any Sith who ever wanted anything. It might destroy him. He wanted it anyway.

It had taken a few weeks, because Tarkin's schedule was a workaholic nightmare and Vader's was only marginally better, but they'd managed to find a date and make the necessary arrangements. They'd planned to start that visit tonight, actually. And then Vader had needed to cancel at the last minute, because his master had summoned him urgently to Coruscant. Even if this meeting was very brief, it would no longer be possible to get home in time.

He was absolutely one hundred percent certain that Palpatine had done it on purpose.

"I don't know how deeply you've inquired into Grand Moff Tarkin's background during your dalliances," Palpatine observed - which irritated Vader; no matter how urgent the mission might be, Palpatine would always want to monologue first. "He first made his name fighting pirates in the area around his homeworld. Quite successfully; I was impressed with his methods, even then. He struck such fear into the hearts of the local syndicates that they barely ventured into the Seswenna sector for years, even after he'd departed the area and moved on to better things. Did you know that?"

"Some of it," said Vader. He and Tarkin had worked together for years before ever dating. So there hadn't been much of the usual first-date chit-chat, asking about background, first jobs, family members, each trying to figure out who the other really was. They'd both been content with the information they'd already picked up, over the years.

Except - on Scarif, they _had_ talked about their backgrounds, a little. Vader had told Tarkin about Padmé; it was an awful story, a very private one, and he'd been surprised to find Tarkin had already guessed several parts. Tarkin had, in turn, told Vader about his own ex-wife and estranged children. Vader had accepted that story without much comment, but it had nagged at him ever since. It bothered him for reasons he had trouble articulating. Vader had spent his whole life longing for a family. Tarkin had acquired one for cold political reasons, and then more or less ignored it until it went away.

Vader did not want to be ignored.

"Very recently, however," said Palpatine, "small raiding parties have been sighted on the outskirts of the Eriadu system. They may be ordinary pirates, or perhaps connected with Rebel activity; or possibly a larger criminal syndicate putting out feelers. You would not normally need to trouble yourself with such things, of course. A local counterinsurgency team, in recent weeks, has already been working on the problem. But, coinciding with this activity, I have felt a small disturbance in the Force. I believe the raiders have come across a very old Sith artifact. A weapon. If so, I should like to acquire this weapon for myself."

Vader nodded. "You wish me to retrieve it."

"To verify its existence, at the very least; and to retrieve it if possible. I cannot yet sense what sort of weapon it is, and I would like to know. So I am shifting priority, temporarily, from outright destruction of these raiders to reconnaissance and retrieval. I'm sending you to the system with Grand Moff Tarkin and a crewed corvette of his choice. He'll enjoy the glimpse of exotic military technology, and he'll certainly know the territory. And, of course, you'll work well together." Palpatine smiled, sardonic. "Though I do expect _work_ to be done."

"I will attend to my duties," Vader agreed, but he felt suspicious. He had expected Palpatine to be uncomfortable with what was going on between him and Tarkin; he had not expected his master to cheerfully assign them both to the same mission. It was faintly possible that, after derailing their original plan, he'd thrown this to Vader as a consolation. It was much more likely that there was a catch.

And, even in the very best case scenario, it would mean not going to Mustafar.

Palpatine stood, stepping out of his throne with leisurely slowness, as if he'd just decided to go for a walk.

"Unless there is some problem?" he said, dark amusement playing behind his gaze. "Unless you had some prior commitment which is more important to you than the interests of both the Empire and the Sith?"

"No, my master. It is nothing. I will serve."

Palpatine tilted his head, working his jaw slowly as if chewing on some mildly difficult morsel. "Your feelings suggest otherwise. Kneel to me again."

Vader obeyed, resenting the pain that flared back to life in his legs. He had guessed right the first time. Palpatine _had_ brought him here to punish him. He'd just wanted, first, to create an excuse.

"There is a question that has been vexing me, my friend, and I need you to answer it. Do you fully understand to whom it is that you belong?"

"Yes," Vader answered, immediate and true. He knew it and hated it, the same as always.

"Tell me."

"I am yours, my master. I am your apprentice, and the bond between master and apprentice is the heart of the Sith. That has not changed."

"You are mine alone, then, in the ways that matter most?"

"Yes." It didn't matter what happened in his love life. The heart of the Sith transcended all that. Vader would never not be Palpatine's. Not unless he fulfilled the last duty of a Sith apprentice, murdered Palpatine, and took his place as master. Even then, he would still be nothing but what Palpatine had made him, filling the role that Palpatine had first defined by example. There wasn't any other way out.

Palpatine's nostrils flared. "Then explain this to me."

He reached up to Vader's helmeted face and, on an entirely non-physical level, _pulled._

Vader braced against the intrusion, resisting despite himself. It was an animal instinct, the urge to curl in around what was personal and vulnerable, to push any threats to it away. Even though he knew full well that Palpatine already had this information. Even though resistance only made it hurt worse.

To a Force-sensitive person, minds were not completely private things. They were somewhat transparent, and they leaked feelings all the time, including feelings that the individuals in question would rather not have shared. But it was one thing to glance at a person and take note of the feelings one saw. That didn't hurt them. It didn't even hurt to share senses, the way Vader did with his lovers, within certain constraints. It was another thing entirely to dig into a mind's innards, pulling out whole memories and plans from its least-visible depths against the victim's will. _That_ hurt, every bit as much as if Palpatine had cut his way in with a knife. Vader was called on frequently, himself, to perform mind probes on the Empire's most important prisoners. It was the most efficient and reliable form of interrogation in existence. It was also, very literally, torture.

What raggedly came to the surface as Palpatine pulled, in a jumble of remembered sound and sight and texture and emotion, were a series of different intimate moments with Tarkin.

_You are mine,_ Vader had told him, tangled in his fortress's black-sheeted guest bed.

_And you're mine,_ Tarkin had replied, reaching for the chin of Vader's mask. _Let's stop pretending it's just one or the other, shall we?_

_You're mine now,_ Tarkin had said, comforting a vulnerable maskless Vader in his meditation chamber. _I'm not going anywhere._

_I'm yours, Vader, _he'd said the next morning, trying to steady him, silhouetted against the window in the bright morning sun as Vader pawed at him in something halfway between panic and lust. _And you're mine._

_Swear to it, _Vader had demanded in response.

_You're mine, Vader,_ Tarkin had murmured later, crouched panting over him in a different guest bed, the one on Scarif. This one, blue-gray and full of morning sun. _All of you. Whether you're in your armor or not, you're all mine._

_Mine, _Vader had growled incoherently, more than once, at the peak of sex.

_Yes,_ Tarkin had replied. _Mine-_

At the time all these moments had been beautiful, tender, thrilling. They'd had their filthy and even sadistic aspects, because that was what Vader liked, but at heart they'd been formed out of pleasure, shared generously, both sides adoring and enthralled. Replayed now for Palpatine, there was something newly horrible about them. Ugly flesh slapping against itself. Passion distorted until it seemed contemptible, pathetic. That was how it looked to Palpatine, who didn't even like sex in the first place. Vader knew he'd never be able to remember those moments again without feeling that disgusted gaze burned in at their edges.

At last it stopped. The feeling of intrusion shrank to nothing, and the memories persisted only as echoes. Vader concentrated on keeping his posture, not shaking, not wobbling. He hated Palpatine even more than usual. Hated the cold dark feeling of his mind, the way it seeped like a poison into everything, even this.

"If you had called yourself his with your own voice," Palpatine said, "you and I would be having a rather different discussion. I am not a forgiving person, but I will pardon him for having said it himself. He appears to have been... uninformed. I expect that to be corrected now, of course."

"Yes, my master," Vader said automatically.

Palpatine had not told him, before, that he could not let a partner say the word _mine._ Of course, if Vader pointed that out, Palpatine would say that it should be obvious. A true Sith apprentice couldn't bear to be spoken to that way by anyone but their master. If Vader hadn't immediately seen that problem, then he needed correction.

Vader knew better than to be drawn into arguments like that. If Tarkin hadn't ever said _mine,_ Palpatine would simply have come up with some other complaint. He knew the real reason why he was being punished now. For a few brief moments, Vader had found something so good for himself that it made Palpatine _insecure._

He didn't regret it. He remembered from his old life how stubborn a thing jealousy was, how its pain could persist regardless of attempts at correction or control. If Palpatine was suffering from something like that, then Vader would spitefully savor it.

Palpatine, standing over him, sniffed. "Your thoughts betray you. You think I am capable of something as commonplace as jealousy. It is never that, my friend; I have no need. If I wanted your heart, I could have taken it years ago. And as for your body..."

He walked in a semicircle around Vader, his hand descending to Vader's caped shoulder. The light touch didn't hurt. Vader didn't feel it at all, through that part of his armor. He still wanted to slap it away.

"Don't forget I'm the one who peeled you out of the ashes on Mustafar. I performed the triage and determined which parts of you were worth saving. I built your armor. I designed that mask your lover finds so attractive. I'm the one who manages your care and approves or vetoes treatments. I know the scars on every inch of your skin and the various dysfunctions of every organ inside it. I hardly need to rut with you to know I own your body. Tell me, Lord Vader, whose are you?"

_No one's,_ Vader wanted to say, burning with humiliated rage. He wanted to push Palpatine choking through the air away from him. _No one's, I'm mine, I'm my own._

He wasn't, though.

"I am yours, my master," he replied, keeping his head bowed.

Palpatine let his hand retract from Vader's shoulder, shaking it off as though it had touched something wet or unpleasant. "Yes. Good. That's the only lesson for today. Tarkin will slip out of your hands soon enough; I've foreseen that. But _you, _my friend, will be mine until the day you die."

*

Wilhuff Tarkin carefully avoided letting excitement or impatience show on his face as he waited, back straight and hands clasped behind him, for Vader to board the _Overseer._ This was not his usual I-Class Star Destroyer, but a mere corvette with a crew of about a hundred. The Emperor had informed him that he had his pick of ships from this size class, but there really wasn't much choice, considering the short notice and the need for a meditation chamber. The _Overseer_ was adequate to those needs, and it had a good sensor array which could be augmented further, more quickly than installing a meditation chamber on a ship that didn't have one. He'd made do.

The medium-gray interior corridors had been hastily polished within an inch of their lives in preparation for the Grand Moff's arrival; he could tell, because the crew had missed a couple of spots. It had been a long time since he'd served on any ship of such modest design. It had been a long time since he'd had to deal with Eriadu's local issues at all. He'd been aware of the raiders, these past few weeks, but only as one issue out of many. He hadn't expected to be called away to deal with them personally.

Tarkin liked this sort of work. He liked catching and punishing miscreants; he liked his home planet. He liked working with Vader. He especially liked the idea of ancient Sith weapons, which could perhaps be studied and reverse-engineered. But he was not used to being called away from his governing duties for something that could have been handled by a small local squad. He suspected that the Emperor, as always, was up to something.

When Vader's shuttle finally approached the _Overseer_'s hangar bay, they were fifteen minutes behind schedule and everyone else aboard had already been briefed. Tarkin stood politely anyway, at the head of the small double line of troopers who'd gathered at attention to honor the Dark Lord's arrival. The shuttle ponderously landed, and its loading ramp extended like a tongue.

Striding down the ramp in his black suit, mask, and cape, Vader looked as dangerously beautiful as ever. Tarkin suppressed a small thrill. This thing between them was in many ways still new, and despite his misgivings about this mission, it pleased him knowing they would be on an adventure together. He'd get to work with Vader closely, as they'd been doing on and off for years. When there was downtime, they'd get to be alone together. He'd get to feel Vader's Force-touch all over his body, hurting him deliciously and fucking him senseless. He'd get to touch those gloved hands, those suited limbs, to hold Vader in his actual arms; that was a thing they'd only recently started doing, and he was delighted by it. There was even a meditation chamber on this ship; if everything worked out right, he might see Vader's face again.

From the way the crew around him shifted their weight, Tarkin knew they didn't share any of his fondness for the Sith Lord. They were probably all calculating the likelihood that Vader might kill them, and planning how to foist the most dangerous Vader-adjacent duties off on each other. Vader, too, could sense when people did that, which only made it funnier.

"Lord Vader," Tarkin said, nodding formally. It was no longer a secret that he and Vader were lovers, but he still believed in protocol and decorum, which meant addressing each other in public as though they were not. "It's an honor to have you aboard. Are you ready to embark?"

Vader waved a gloved hand dismissively. It might have been Tarkin's imagination, but he thought he saw something surlier than usual in Vader's body language. "That is acceptable."

Tarkin turned to another of the officers gathered. "You may launch, Commander Martagon."

The _Overseer_'s usual commander quickly strode out of the room, eager to make up for the lost time - and, no doubt, to distance herself physically from a disgruntled Vader. Tarkin turned back to Vader and began to walk alongside him, wordlessly dismissing the rest of the honor guard. "We have quite a bit of time before our projected arrival. There's some coordination with Eriadu's existing counterinsurgency teams that still needs to be done, but this crew has already had their initial briefing, so I wonder if I might bring you up to speed in private."

"As you wish," said Vader. Yes, that was definitely a surlier tone than usual. Tarkin could guess why, of course. He knew how attached Vader had been to their original plan.

The walk to the briefing room was uneventful. Tarkin attempted to engage Vader in publicly acceptable small talk - how had the rest of his work been going, that sort of thing - and Vader responded in monosyllables. But soon enough the door swished shut behind them, and in the ordinary gray room, with little more than a few comfortable office chairs and a serviceable holo-table, they were alone.

Tarkin let out a long breath, then turned to Vader with a smile he'd been holding back. It was nice, in a way, to be back on familiar ground. They'd spent most of their long acquaintance doing official Imperial work of one sort of another, in the efficient confines of ships just like this one. Usually larger ships. But close enough.

"Well," he said. "Now we can speak a bit more freely. How _are_ you, Vader? I've missed you."

"I am as well as ever," said Vader in a dour tone.

"Oh, come now. Don't be like that." He reached out and clasped Vader's hands, pulling them gently towards him.

They'd only been apart a few weeks, but he'd been obsessively remembering little things like this, even more than he'd thought about sex. Holding hands with Vader. Leaning against him. Sprawling at his side, head resting on his upper arm, in the afterglow. Running a hand down his suited thigh. Touching his face - though, given how rarely anyone saw Vader's face, that last wasn't a little thing at all. The rest of the crew's frightened looks at Vader had only accentuated his pleasure. Vader was a gorgeous monster, a whirlwind of death, but he was capable of love too, if you were brave enough. And now Tarkin had these small precious things that most people in the Empire could not imagine. All this was _his._

"I know this isn't what you wanted," he said. "But it's still a good deal of time together, working or not. I'm confident we'll make the best of it."

Vader's hands lay in Tarkin's, sullenly limp. "I wanted to take you to Mustafar."

Tarkin was well aware of that. He'd wanted that too, but he suspected Vader's desire surpassed anything he could imagine. Tarkin had possessed good health throughout his life, and he didn't truly understand how it would feel to live in a sealed life support suit, untouched, for eighteen years. Vader was a forceful person at the best of times, and it was no surprise if his desire for contact now felt overwhelming.

Which only meant that it fell to Tarkin, as it sometimes did, to be the grown-up about it.

"In a way," he said calmly, "I think this may work out to our advantage. I was - well. I was honored by what you offered me. I wanted to be on Mustafar tonight, too. But I've had several weeks to think about it, and it's occurred to me that going immediately might not have been the best strategy. So far I've only touched your face twice, and it was _good_ both times, but also overwhelming for you. Perhaps we need more practice before we ramp up to your whole body."

Vader pulled away entirely at that. "You are backing out."

"I am not. Slowing isn't the same as backing out."

"It is as you said on Scarif. You said I am not competent to make decisions. I have endured far worse than anything you could possibly do with my body. But you do not think I can choose to endure you. You think I am _weak._"

"Vader," Tarkin snapped. It aggrieved him that they were arguing so early this time. "It is not a question of endurance. It's a question, first, of wanting the experience to be enjoyable for you, and second, of wanting to avoid ill effects myself. You might recall that, our first time in the meditation chamber, you had a trauma flashback and threw me out onto the floor. Our second time, you enjoyed it more, only to panic the next morning and shatter a very large window because you didn't know how to handle intimacy in your own body. It is _entirely reasonable_ to wait until you're no longer having unexpected reactions before we progress further."

He fully expected Vader to snap some set of complaints back at him. Instead, when Vader spoke again, his deep voice was soft. Bitter. "I have disappointed you, then."

"What? No, that's - Vader, how can you literally read minds and still be so dense? Look at me." He waited until Vader had raised his helmeted head slightly. He'd used this tactic before, daring Vader to focus more deeply and see the truth of his words. He knew some of the Jedi's ways of examining minds could be painful, but so far that hadn't happened to him, and it didn't now. "Wasn't I pleased to see you when we came in? You know I was. I have been thinking of you constantly. All I meant to say was that the delay will make it easier not to hurt you."

Even as he said it, he felt a guilty twinge - not for the delay, but for wanting Vader's original offer at all. He knew that their encounters in the meditation chamber had hurt Vader, in more ways than one. Even the lightest touch of Tarkin's fingertips to Vader's forehead had ached. They hadn't talked about it, and Vader had given no sign at the time, but he'd silently demonstrated it to Tarkin the next morning, brushing his gloved hand against Tarkin's face and creating a sensation underneath it with the Force. A strange deep ache. Vader could endure pain, of course. But in a new and fraught situation, Tarkin didn't trust him to communicate effectively about further pain. He likely couldn't even predict what would cause it.

Vader sounded dubious. "Because that is what you want. You want the pleasure of being close to me, without the remorse of having hurt me."

It would be better if Vader could get it through his head that his safety mattered for its own sake. But at the moment, Tarkin would take any understanding he could get. "Yes, if you want to think of it that way."

"You think you are asking less of me, this way. But you are asking more."

"Not as much as you think. Just patience and a bit of self-monitoring." Tarkin reached out to clasp Vader's arm again. This time, after a moment of reluctance, Vader clasped back. "I'm aware that's not your strong suit. But we're going to make this work. Don't worry. You are still very much mine."

But at that last word, Vader jerked suddenly away.

"Do not call me that," he said, as Tarkin blinked in startlement. "My master dislikes it."

Tarkin frowned up at Vader as he tried to process that. He'd said the word 'mine' several times, and not only on this visit, and Vader had never minded it before. This time he looked as though he'd touched something too hot or cold for him. As if the word itself had burned.

The Emperor must have voiced this complaint only recently, then. Perhaps just today, while briefing Vader on the mission. Tarkin did not like anything about that.  The last time the Emperor had concerns about his and Vader's relationship, Tarkin had nearly wound up eaten by a lava monster. No wonder Vader was in a foul mood, now.

They'd had one good weekend together. _One._ The Emperor had said that he didn't disapprove. But now here he was again, trying to ruin it.

Come to think of it, Tarkin wasn't sure _how_ Palpatine knew the words he and Vader had spoken to each other, but never mind. It was probably some ineffable Force power. Or, perhaps Vader had simply told him. Neither option could be helped.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Tarkin said, as neutrally as he could. "I hope he wasn't too angry."

"That is immaterial," said Vader, even more sullenly than before.

This confirmed some of Tarkin's suspicions. What sort of awful things did the Emperor do when he decided Vader had displeased him? Tarkin had a good imagination when it came to forms of cruelty, but he suspected most of Palpatine's techniques were beyond him. Not worse than other cruelties, necessarily, but involving the Force in ways that didn't correspond to senses Tarkin possessed.  "What else did he tell you?"

"That is none of your concern."

"I mean about me. I'd rather not break any further rules without knowing.  Have I, ah... done anything else that displeases him?"

He and Vader had experimented on Scarif quite a bit. On one of the evenings, they'd tried reversing their usual kink dynamic. Tarkin had played dominant to Vader for a change. He had chained him and hurt him and used him for pleasure. Vader had tolerated it; he was not a natural submissive, but he'd been interested in how Tarkin's mind would feel while switching. Tarkin understood they weren't going to do that often, but he'd liked it _very_ much.

Palpatine was Vader's real master, and it had occurred to Tarkin that he might want Vader submitting even briefly to someone else. He'd asked Vader directly about that, and Vader had denied that there was any problem. Whatever it was that he did in his Sith rituals was entirely different from sexual play; there was very little chance, in Vader's opinion, of the two conflicting. But if Palpatine was scrutinizing their activities and deciding what he disliked after the fact, then... Well, that could be very bad.

"I do not think so," said Vader. "He did not say."

"So it's just that I'm not to use the word 'mine' with you? Or is there a broader spectrum of possessive statements or actions that we should avoid?"

"I do not know," said Vader.

Tarkin felt some biting comment rise about the importance of actually clarifying these things, but he swallowed it. He saw the deeper meaning Vader was trying to get across. In a relationship, romantic or otherwise, it was unfair to make rules without stating them clearly up front. But Vader hadn't bothered to ask for clarity, because he already knew it was supposed to be unfair. Palpatine would always and only be unfair to him, and there was nothing Vader felt he could do.

Tarkin let out his breath shortly . When he spoke again, it was with the greatest delicacy available to him. "May I still call myself yours?"

Vader's gaze somehow seemed to burn straight into him, even through the mask. "If you cease to do so, I will be... displeased."

Well, Tarkin thought, both relieved and unsettled. This was far from an ideal situation, but at least he still _had_ Vader. For the foreseeable future, at least. He needed to think more about this.

Vader turned before he could formulate a response. "I must visit my quarters and ensure my meditation chamber is up to code. I will return for the briefing."

He strode out of the room, his cape rippling behind him.

"I _am_ yours, Vader," Tarkin said after him in a low voice. "And you haven't disappointed me."

The anger he felt, like frost burning under his skin, was no longer directed at Vader at all.

The door swished shut.

Tarkin took a steadying breath, then called up the holo-table's display, so that if anyone came in, he'd at least _appear_ to be working. The table showed a detailed chart of the Eriadu system: its single sun and its various planets and moons, labeled with the locations where the suspected pirates had been seen. The Emperor's premonition about a weapon hadn't come with precise coordinates, so it would take a while to narrow down their search.

Palpatine was, by disposition, cruel. Tarkin had recognized it very early in their long acquaintance, because Tarkin was that sort of person, too. It was one of the reasons why he'd chosen the military as his calling, even before the Republic had any military as such. At military work, Tarkin could stretch his monstrous side to its full capacity, visiting terror and pain and despair on whoever officially deserved it. In his personal relationships, he'd chosen to be much more restrained. Palpatine had chosen otherwise. That fact didn't surprise Tarkin overmuch, but it disappointed him.

No - he should call it what it was. Inasmuch as it affected Vader, it made him _angry. _Tarkin was the sort of person whose anger ran cold. It didn't spin out into tantrums like Vader's , but it was every bit as real.

After Mustafar, newly injured by the lava monster, Tarkin had been angry. He'd said so to Palpatine's face, and Palpatine had only chuckled. Tarkin's injury was the part he'd felt emboldened to complain about aloud. But he had also been angry about the position it put Vader in, about how Palpatine seemed to treat Vader generally. He'd realized, at about that time, that he wouldn't be able to resist trying to _help_ Vader, in whatever small ways he realistically could. Even if his own Emperor preferred him not to.

The trip to Scarif had been about that, obliquely, and in many ways it had worked. It had been very good for Vader, spending that small portion of time in a place where he wasn't required to be monstrous. If Palpatine had objected to the visit being good in that way, he could have said so to Vader immediately afterwards.  Instead he'd waited until today, at a time which conflicted with Vader and Tarkin's most cherished plans, knowing Vader would still go straight to Tarkin in the conversation's aftermath.

This wasn't only a new stricture to punish Vader, then. It was also a warning, in angry-Darth-Vader-shaped letters, delivered straight to Tarkin's door.

_Do not forget,_ said the warning, _who owns this man._

Every time Tarkin executed a plan like the one on Scarif, every time he managed to gift Vader with something that improved his lot, Palpatine would find something else to take away. Every time Tarkin attempted to make Vader suffer just a little bit less, Vader would instead suffer more.

Tarkin knew that gambit. He was the galaxy's foremost expert on ruling through fear. A subject's physical self was often not the most effective thing to threaten. Fanatics like the Rebels might be willing to suffer and die for their cause. The most selfish criminals might still take reckless risks with themselves, if they imagined a commensurate reward. But harm to a loved one could be vastly more frightening. Even very hardened opponents could balk at that one. If Emperor wanted to dissuade Tarkin's meddling, he didn't need to punish Tarkin directly. Not when he could, with much greater efficiency, punish Vader instead.

Unfortunately, Tarkin wasn't the type to be cowed by that tactic, either. He would not be Palpatine's prey. It was a matter of professional pride, and also of survival: show a man like Palpatine that he could be made to back down, and Palpatine then would control him forever.

Except - Palpatine knew Tarkin very well, and Palpatine was extremely clever. He would have predicted, presumably, that Tarkin would respond in this way.

He wasn't quite sure yet how to factor _that_ in. Or to predict what Palpatine's real goal might be, in the long term.

Tarkin raised a knuckle to his lips, staring into the depths of the hologram map. He was definitely not thinking, even a little bit, about work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to Spooky-Spaghetties for some very long excellent Vader-related chats over the past few weeks which have influenced my thinking about him throughout this fic. (The plot itself is still mine, and anything you don't like about it, you can definitely blame me for!)
> 
> Relatedly to the above, I have gotten back on Tumblr. I suck at posting but if you wanna hang out and talk about Star Wars villains, I'm madeofsplinters over there now.
> 
> Comments are love <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tarkin pays attention to the mission and Vader does not; boundaries are violated; loyalties are questioned; crying is avoided on a technicality; and Vader continues having a very bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> confession: I have no actual idea how space missions work
> 
> (ETA: I don't know why I didn't warn for it at first, but there's an attempted sexual assault in this chapter.)

Vader had gone to his quarters to try to calm down, but he wasn't very good at that. The meditation chamber was in working order, at least: a toothed black sphere which gaped open on command to reveal a sterile white interior, along with a box containing all the medicines and nutrient packs he'd need. The quarters were small, which was no surprise given the _Overseer_'s size generally, and there wasn't much else in them.

He did rummage around until he found one other supply, a standard pack of antiseptic tissues, and placed it inside the meditation chamber just in case. At this rate, Vader wasn't even sure if Tarkin would agree to an activity that required them. But it didn't hurt to have them in there anyway.

_Tarkin will slip out of your hands soon enough._ Palpatine had said that absently, just a minor remark as he finished up, but Vader now suspected it was the worst punishment of all. Pain and violation could be compartmentalized away. But _this_ was such a vague and difficult fear, so in line with Vader's weak points and with a doubt he'd already possessed. He didn't know how to get rid of it.

Avoiding Tarkin wasn't going to help, though.

Vader turned and made his way back to the briefing room, but found it empty. That irritated him even more, and he clenched his fist as he walked further through the ship. After a short search, Tarkin turned out to have gone to the bridge - a small room barely worthy of the name. A pilot, astrogator, and a handful of other officers sat at modest stations at its edges, without the benefit of a proper crew pit. Tarkin stood at the front, watching the blue swirl of hyperspace through the transparisteel windows and speaking idly to Commander Martagon. She was a woman of perhaps forty - rare in the Imperial military, which skewed heavily human and male - and she looked politely attentive, masking her fear quite well for a mere commander.

"-believe Lord Vader is the ranking officer for the duration of this mission," Tarkin was saying, in response to some question. "However, I don't believe he has an interest in the piracy aspect as such, merely in the weapon itself. So, until we have a lead on the weapon's location, you'll mostly report to me. Oh, there you are, Lord Vader. I was just clarifying to Commander Martagon the chain of command."

Vader was not a member of the Imperial military as such; he worked mainly outside of it, reporting directly to the Emperor. Sometimes, on military missions, he was put fully in charge. Other times, he was seconded to some general or admiral and told to do their bidding for a while. But the Emperor hadn't bothered to specify who commanded whom this time. It sounded like Tarkin had decided that on his own, choosing to place himself below Vader in the hierarchy, while still laying claim to the tasks that most interested him.

"That is correct," Vader said, after a moment's pause. "I care only for the weapon, which must be returned to my master. With the pirates, you may do as you please."

He felt Tarkin's small glow of anticipation. Tarkin enjoyed having license to destroy the Empire's enemies in any manner he liked. Vader had that all the time, of course, and he suspected it was one of the things Tarkin liked about him. He didn't get off on it the way Tarkin did, but he could see why it appealed.

"Lord Vader, do you have any information about the weapon that might be of use?" Commander Martagon addressed him, deferent but focused. "We were told only that it's a relic of some kind, and that the pirates in this area are rumored to possess it. If we knew its properties, we could narrow the search more quickly. Its size, for example, or any energies it might emit."

"I do not yet know. I may feel its presence when we are closer, but do not count on that. Plan on capturing one or more of these pirates and bringing them to me for interrogation."

"That was more or less the plan," Tarkin acknowledged. "I have the initial reports from the local counterinsurgency teams already, and they'll be analyzed further while we're on route. When we're in range, we can liase with the local teams directly and work out the quickest way to obtain such a prisoner, if they don't already have a suitable one. Your own unique battle skills may be useful there."

"Acceptable," said Vader, bored already. Planning always bored him. And he was still upset that Tarkin had left the briefing room, when Vader had told him he'd be back soon. On a mission, significant blocks of time alone between work tasks were rare, and by returning to the bridge so quickly, Tarkin had effectively squandered this one.

But it sounded like there wasn't much to do until they came out of hyperspace. It was late afternoon, Coruscanti time, and flying all the way to Eriadu would take most of the evening and overnight. Calling Tarkin away to resume their meeting, in full view of the rest of the bridge crew, would be against Tarkin's usual rules. But Vader was feeling spiteful about the whole concept of rules. Maybe he could make it work, this once.

He turned to Tarkin. "I had further geographic questions about the Eriadu system following our briefing. Walk with me."

"As you wish, Lord Vader," Tarkin replied; he knew better than to argue with Vader in front of the bridge crew, especially when he'd just declared himself Vader's subordinate. Undercutting each other publicly would be even worse than shirking their duties. He turned and nodded to Martagon. "Commander."

It wasn't until they were alone in the briefing room that Tarkin dropped his professional facade. "'Geographic questions,' Vader? Really? You know we can't do things like this. We've discussed it before."

"You should have waited here. I told you I would return."

Tarkin pinched the bridge of his nose. Something else seemed to be troubling him, above and beyond Vader's breach of protocol. Vader couldn't feel what it was, but he could feel it _there,_ like an itch. "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Vader. When I invited you in here before, I wanted to quickly catch up and see how you were dealing with the change of plans. There isn't time yet for further indulgence. We'll have time this evening after the day shift, but I'm needed on the bridge until then."

"You are not. The teams you are meant to liase with are not yet here. You would rather stand on the bridge _looking_ busy than be with me."

Vader could feel, dimly, that he was overreacting. This whole damn day was wearing on him. He needed Tarkin _here_, steadying him. He needed to prove there was still something between them that Palpatine hadn't yet ruined. Instead, it seemed that Tarkin was finding every possible reason to back away.

Tarkin had always liked work more than he liked other people. He'd said as much, or nearly, on Scarif.

"It is_ not_ merely looking busy," Tarkin said. "The bridge crew and I need to go over the intelligence we have so that we're up to speed by the time of our rendezvous. And, beyond that, you and I also need to gain this crew's trust." He waved a hand. "Or their fearful obedience, if you prefer. But it's a new team. They know us by reputation, but they aren't used to us yet, and only by being present and attentive can we convince them our orders are to be taken seriously. That will not occur if they see us running off to fuck when we have duties-"

Vader was not in the mood to be lectured to. He picked Tarkin up bodily with the Force and threw him up into position against the wall, hovering a foot off the ground and immobilized.

"You need not allow anything," said Vader. "You are _mine._ I am in command of you. If you do not allow me what I want, I will take it myself."

Normally Vader cared what Tarkin thought, but he was tense beyond endurance and Tarkin was being obstreperous for no reason. He needed this more than Tarkin needed the good opinion of a tiny corvette crew they were never going to see again. He felt Tarkin's flare of alarm, but Vader liked fear anyway. He grabbed with the Force at the buttons of Tarkin's uniform, started undoing them. Peeling them away.

"_Vader,_" Tarkin snapped, in the same tone one might use for a dangerously misbehaving animal.

Vader paused, even tenser than before. He hated himself for pausing; proper Sith Lords didn't hesitate like this. He hated himself more for starting this in the first place, when he knew better. He _needed_ this; he needed a rush of sensation that he controlled and chose, and that didn't have the feel of Palpatine peering in at its edge. But deep down he knew he didn't want to hurt Tarkin this way. He'd only ruin everything faster if he did.

Clearly, there were some things Vader simply couldn't have.

Still seething inside, he let go of Tarkin and let him drop gently to the floor.  


That was the thing about Tarkin. He had a knack for making Vader back down. They'd never discussed aloud how it worked, but it had happened many times, and Vader could dimly sense how Tarkin _thought_ it worked. Tarkin thought of it in terms of what he could see and hear. A firm stance, a clear voice, a steady gaze: all the things ordinary people used to project their strength. Tarkin believed, as far as Vader could tell, that these things in and of themselves were what worked.

They weren't, though. Other officials had tried it over the years, mimicking Tarkin's habitual tone when Vader did something to displease them, but it never worked. Their feelings were wrong: too dismissive, as if Vader really was only a beast to be brought to heel, without his own worthwhile thoughts on the matter. Or else too fearful, undermining the outward effort. Vader didn't need to listen to people like that.

But it worked when Tarkin did it, because Tarkin, alone of all the people in the Empire, had genuine faith it would. No matter how violently Vader acted out, no matter how curtly Tarkin spoke or what animal metaphors he used in his head, deep down Tarkin looked at Vader and saw a man he respected. Someone powerful, strong, and not unintelligent, who knew better than whatever nonsense his impulses had led him to this time. Who would of_ course_ do better, if only he was properly reminded.

Vader had always liked the way Tarkin looked at him. It was how he'd first known he was attracted to Tarkin, years and years ago, long before he'd realized there could be anything romantic about it. Long before Tarkin had seemed to return his attraction at all.

Tarkin let out a short breath, turning his attention to his buttons and doing them back up. "Don't do that again."

Vader turned away, not trusting himself to answer. He could feel, still, that other matter itching in the back of Tarkin's mind. He was half tempted to reach in and dig for it, but he wouldn't, not straight on the heels of a different violation.

"There is something else," he said. "Bothering you. I feel it."

He heard Tarkin sigh again and shift, uncomfortably, behind him.

"There is," Tarkin admitted. "But we don't have time to discuss it now. It isn't any complaint against you. I need to go back to the bridge, Vader."

Vader didn't answer, and after only a second's pause, Tarkin strode out of the room anyway. Vader tried fruitlessly to pull himself together.

He hoped, illogically, that the pirates would find them in hyperspace. Attack them there. At least then he'd have a place to take out his frustrations. But it seemed, until evening, that Vader would be fully on his own.

*

The day passed at a crawl. Vader had a short attention span at the best of times. Even after the worst of his rage had drained out of him, he still found it impossible to focus on the minutely detailed strategic discussions that Tarkin and Commander Martagon seemed to insist on having.

He listened enough to understand the basics of the plan. The _Overseer_ was taking a little-used hyperspace route that would spit it out on the Eriadu system's outskirts. Tarkin had ordered a cloaking device brought aboard, expensive technology that the existing local teams didn't possess. Their route would bring them into the system in the middle of the night, and the ship's night crew would take a cautious trajectory from there, making detailed scans for life forms across some of the outer deserted planets and filling in some gaps in the local team's work. Tarkin seemed exasperated that there were gaps at all. Then by morning they'd reach Eriadu and rendezvous with a Star Destroyer there to plot their next moves.

Vader didn't care about the details beyond that, though, so he found himself resorting to one of his favorite tricks for the boring parts of missions: he stood in an attentive pose on a noticeable part of the bridge, breathed loudly, and meditated. No one could tell through the mask that he was staring at nothing, communing with the cold empty hunger of the universe around him, instead of attending to the conversation. Every few minutes he let himself pace a bit, or tilt his helmet towards someone in particular. If anyone formed an actual question in his direction, he'd feel it in time to answer. But mostly, no one wanted anything more complicated from him than _please don't choke me_. As usual.

It was soothing, in an odd way. The vacuum of interstellar space was suffused with the Dark Side: not thickly, but enough to be felt. The Dark Side understood what it was to have a desperate yawning void inside that would never be filled. In that, at least, Vader was not alone.

Finally the work day ended, and Tarkin nodded to Commander Martagon before turning on his heel and leaving. Vader was cautious, now, after his earlier lapse. He waited a few minutes. He exchanged a few vague, terse questions with the commander, calling up the few useful details he remembered, as if he'd been paying attention to her all along. Only then did he stride out of the room and back towards his quarters.

He unclenched his hands in relief as he saw Tarkin, standing there by the meditation chamber, waiting for him.

Tarkin smiled up at him possessively. There was no more fear or defensiveness within him than usual; this afternoon's lapse had been forgiven, then. But that mysterious other matter was still there, itching at him, more faintly than before. "There you are."

"I was careful this time. I finished my duties at my own pace, instead of - running off."

Tarkin's smile widened. "I inferred that. I do like when you correct yourself. What would you like to do now?"

Vader waved a gloved hand, sending a shiver of Force-touch up Tarkin's spine. "You know what it is I have wanted from you all day."

Tarkin's eyes half-closed. In spite of all the day's stresses, in spite of how badly Vader had behaved ever since boarding, he could feel how Tarkin still wanted him. It had been harder to feel before, when Tarkin was distracted by work, but it was _there,_ and now that Tarkin had finished his other duties, there was nothing left to stand in its way. They'd been waiting for this for three weeks, and now they almost had it.

Vader realized, with an odd pang, that some part of him hadn't believed it would happen. He'd half-believed that Tarkin was slipping away already. He regretted it now, that lack of faith.

"In essence, yes," Tarkin said. "But for particulars, I see at least three options. You could take me here and get it out of your system before we try the meditation chamber. Or if you're craving skin contact, we could go in there first. Or we could talk first; I know there were matters earlier that we didn't finish discussing. Which would you rather?"

Vader took only a moment to consider it. "The meditation chamber. But I require my medicine first."

"That's fine."

Tarkin turned away to partially disrobe; the meditation chamber was too warm for full uniform, and Vader liked the symmetry of it, taking off some of his own armor and making his partner do the same. While he did that, Vader opened his box of supplies. He tried not to be too self-conscious as he opened the port partway down his torso and loaded the medicine packets one at a time. It was a simple but mildly uncomfortable process, as his suit's small valves and pumps guided the influx of material into the depths of his body.

He paid attention, with half of his mind, to Tarkin's feelings. Tarkin seemed to find this interesting simply because it was Vader, but it was mechanical to him, like watching a vehicle maintained. Not intimate or emotional. Not like seeing Vader's face.

"I noticed," said Tarkin at length, having removed everything but his undergarments, "that you've been in some distress today. I don't entirely blame you for that, not as much as I normally would. I think I have an inkling what happened. But I know that having your mask removed can be emotionally intense, so that may be more challenging, if you're upset already. Perhaps you'd like me to move slower than last time, or avoid certain things."

Vader invisibly rolled his eyes. "There will never be a time, under any circumstances, when I want you to move slower."

"But you're doing what you did last time, to protect yourself?"

"Yes," Vader replied. He was already building the beginnings of those defenses: the mental preparations that would ground him, if intense emotions or memories came up. Not dissociating from them entirely, but keeping focused in the moment, in his present senses, with Tarkin. Letting the rest wash through and away. It had worked last time, and he suspected it would again.

He wished Tarkin would trust him. Maybe Vader didn't deserve to be trusted; he was used to people worrying he'd hurt them, usually with very good reason. But he was not used to people worrying he'd hurt _himself_, and he didn't like how that felt. Vader had dealt with being Vader, misery and all, for a long time. Tarkin acted as if it was all new.

Tarkin seemed to think that, if Vader did slip and hurt himself, he'd somehow be failing them both. Vader didn't like that kind of pressure at all.

There was nothing he could think to do about it, though, but move forward.

He disposed of the emptied packets, then opened the meditation chamber. They waited in the darkness for a tedious few minutes while the chamber did its actual medical work: sealed them both in, darkened, pressurized, and removed the different parts of Vader's armor. Vader held Tarkin out of the way of the armor-removal, then set him down, as he had the last few times, sitting astride Vader's belly.

Even now, Vader was wrapped from neck to toe in heavy black fabric, which concealed the suit's more active life-support mechanisms. The only available skin was at chin-level and above, where his helmet had been pulled from him. Tarkin was placed so that, if he crouched and leaned downwards, they'd face each other, eye to eye. There was only the mask left, and Vader pulled it from his face, using the Force to set it floating down to its proper shelf.

He blinked up at Tarkin with his true eyes. The sight was blurrier than he cared to admit; Vader's eyes were damaged in such a way that they could no longer focus on any but the closest objects. Normally his mask's lenses _were_ the closest objects, so it didn't matter. The space around him felt softer and more impressionistic without them, and the colors looked different. The air itself felt different, and he had to suppress a small choking sensation, as always, reminding his chest and throat how to breathe again under their own power.

He also felt, as before, Tarkin's reaction to seeing _him_. Tarkin was fascinated by Vader's face. He did not seem to find it beautiful, not in the usual sense. But when Tarkin looked at Vader's face, he saw something precious and vulnerable. Something he wanted.

Tarkin leaned in close until Vader could focus clearly on the sight of his face. The indrawn lines of it, the sharp cheekbones, the alert gaze. The fringe of gray, receding hair. It wasn't any different from how Tarkin looked normally, but it _felt_ different this way, and Vader drank it in.

He looked... concerned. More than he had before the mask came off. There was something pained in Vader's expression, then, something that elicited pity. Vader wasn't sure which part of his face was doing it, or how to turn it off.

"Are you sure you're all right for this?" Tarkin asked.

Yes. Maybe. Vader didn't want to have that discussion yet again. He reached up with a gloved hand and tangled his fingers in Tarkin's hair, pulling him gently even closer. "Yes," he said. "This will help. Kiss me."

He shut his eyes as Tarkin brought his lips down to brush against Vader's. It did help, and also hurt, in a rushing tangle of emotion. Releasing some tensions and driving others even deeper. The sensation was something he'd needed so badly, so pure and simple that it made him angry: why couldn't he have this all the time? Why did it take such careful scheduling and negotiation and an entire specialized medical pod? He just wanted to kiss the man he loved. Easily and casually, like everyone else.

Like it had been with Padmé, some of the time, when secrecy allowed-

He refocused on Tarkin. He wouldn't let himself get drawn too deeply into memory or anguish. He felt the anger and grief like a wave from outside him, let it build and ebb at its own pace. Tarkin was pressed to him, here, now, and that was what mattered.

Anger was power to a Sith, but it wasn't the power Vader wanted now. Instead he reached through it and drew on the greedy passion that lay even deeper. The Dark Side drew on the strongest emotions, and love was only barely dark - even a love like this one, born out of violent lust between two of the Empire's worst monsters. Love wasn't selfish enough for most of the Dark Side's needs. Palpatine disagreed that it had any use - he and Vader had gone through that doctrinal discussion plenty of times - but Vader knew what he felt. It would power him here and now through all his other pain, if he gave in to it and held on.

Tarkin's hand slipped in along the side of Vader's head, letting his fingers explore Vader's skin that way, and then he detached from the kiss.

"You're here with me," he murmured. "You're on the _Overseer,_ in your meditation chamber. We're on an adventure chasing pirates together and I'm yours. Stay with me."

It was easy to focus on Tarkin when Tarkin focused back, when he understood the gravity of the things Vader was holding at bay. Feeling that focus in Tarkin's mind steadied him, even more than the words.

"Again," he said.

It went on, slow, careful, piecemeal. Each kiss a separate ordeal that Vader focused on enduring, even as he hungered for the next. He knew this part would pass. It would get easier. It would feel better and better, if he could only hold on.

"I'm yours," Tarkin said, between kisses, his fingertips brushing lightly and slowly over the skin that was available. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Prove it," Vader said, and he was surprised how his voice wobbled.

Tarkin kissed him again, and Vader kissed back as fiercely as he could. He felt his face twitching strangely, and his breath hitched. He didn't think about what that meant until they separated again, and Tarkin's expression turned to mild alarm. Tarkin brought his fingers, lightly, to the dry skin under Vader's eyes. "Vader, are you... crying?"

"No," said Vader. Technically, he never cried: his lacrimal glands didn't work. The mask's interior contained mechanisms that kept his eyes moist enough to function, and the air in here was humid enough to stop them from drying out painfully. Tears never rolled from Vader's eyes, and the same breathing difficulties that stopped him from laughing also prevented any audible sobs. But sometimes in great anguish his face twitched like this anyway, trying to mimic a function it no longer had. It was a movement he'd long ago learned to ignore.

Tarkin paused up there, seeming to consider his options. Vader always liked the way Tarkin's thinking felt, clear and clever; he couldn't see details, but he knew Tarkin was putting this moment into its context, matching it with other information, working out its likely cause.

"Do not stop," Vader insisted. "This is part of it." He wasn't sure if that was true; he hadn't cried like this last time. But he and Tarkin were both sadists; they were familiar with the kinds of partners who needed them to keep going, even through tears. To push through to the deeper emotional release that lay at the tears' other side. That sounded better to Vader than stopping.

"I just want to ensure my understanding is correct," Tarkin said. "Before we continue. This... thing, your entire mood today, it's because of the Emperor. Isn't it?"

Vader froze as several mental sensations, things he'd felt from Tarkin earlier and not understood, fell into place. This was the matter that had been nagging at Tarkin all day, ever since his first exchange with Vader this afternoon, and Vader did not like it.

Tarkin wasn't only asking, factually, if the Emperor had made Vader unhappy. He might believe he was; he might insist he was, if pressed. But really Tarkin was asking something deeper. Something that could destroy them both.

He must have seen the alarm in Vader's face, because he immediately backpedaled. "I don't mean- I'm not suggesting anything treasonous, I'm only observing your behavior. You met with him today. He changed your plans, he made an offensively petty new rule for us, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was more. And ever since then you've been in an absurdly large sulk. He _is_ the reason, isn't he? I just have to be sure of that. I don't feel I have enough information to address this problem yet, and I at least need to know that I understand it correctly. That it's not really - some other problem, setting you off."

"This is not _off,_" Vader insisted. He wanted to be commanding. He wanted to push Tarkin physically far away from this line of thinking. But without the voice modulator in his mask, the words came out a desperate whine.

"It is extremely off," said Tarkin more firmly. "You broke protocol in front of our crew and then tried to assault me. That is _off,_ Vader, even for you. Last time you were this anguished at the beginning of a visit, it turned out your master was planning to feed me to a lava monster in front of you. I don't need a detailed exegesis of your feelings if you don't want to give one. But for my own sanity I need to understand what the problem is. If you're simply distressed because he was cruel to you today, or if there's some other plan brewing like that one, or if I've _done_ something-"

"He said you will leave me," Vader blurted.

It was not a lie. Tarkin wasn't lying, either. But they were both hiding other things behind those truths. Palpatine's offhand prophecy wasn't the only awful thing he'd done today. And fear of another lava monster wasn't Tarkin's only reason for asking. Vader could feel it whenever Tarkin mentioned the Emperor. In some small way, perhaps for the very first time, Tarkin's feelings about how Palpatine treated Vader were beginning to tempt him towards disloyalty.

Vader didn't want to talk about that. Vader didn't want it to _exist._ But his fear of Tarkin leaving was real, too, and he could talk about that instead. Probably.

Tarkin blinked, frowning. Then he leaned in and planted another kiss, short and soft, on Vader's lips. When he broke contact, his face was grave. "Let me make this clear, Vader. I have no intention whatsoever of leaving. I'll admit I don't magically foresee the future the way you do, but if I'm going to leave you, it's news to me. What precisely did he say?"

"He said-" Vader hesitated, and then he choked; between the kissing and the not-crying and the sudden fear for Tarkin's survival, his unmasked lungs weren't used to this level of strain. He closed his eyes and tried pulling the air in more slowly, and after a second or two it eased enough for speech to resume. He blinked back up at Tarkin, who was looking at him in even more concern than before. "He said, 'Tarkin will slip out of your hands soon enough; I've foreseen that.'" He heard the tones of his unmasked voice mimicking Palpatine's, and that faintly disgusted him, an echo of his master coming from his own body.

Tarkin frowned. "That's all?"

"About you, yes." He wasn't going to tell Tarkin the rest of what had been said. Tarkin, at least, could be kept out of memories that were none of his business.

"That's... very vague." Tarkin shifted slightly, moving into a more stable, higher crouch. "Do you need your mask back on? That choke just now didn't look pleasant."

"I do not need it yet," said Vader. He might soon, if he choked a second time. He hoped not.

"I promise I'm not finished kissing you yet. But I think we do need to discuss this. I think-" Tarkin hesitated, seeming to weigh his words carefully. "I've noticed you don't seem to think very critically about what the Emperor tells you."

Vader eyed Tarkin's blurry outline, unimpressed. There were a vast number of things wrong between Vader and Palpatine. If Tarkin thought the problem was a lack of critical thinking, if he thought Vader didn't already _know_ how wrong things were, then his usual perceptiveness had fallen out of his head and died.

But if Tarkin was that wrong about all of it, maybe that would keep him safe.

"What sort of apprentice would I be," said Vader, "if I did not listen to my master?"

"Of course you should listen. Obviously I'm not telling you to disobey. Just - think about what he means to achieve when he speaks to you. You know the sort of person he is; you both worship the Dark Side. We'll assume for the sake of argument that he tells you only truths. He's still going to phrase them in the most distressing possible way. To the point of misleading you, if you aren't careful."

"It was clear enough to me," said Vader. He couldn't think of any interpretation of _Tarkin will slip out of your hands_ that wasn't a bad thing.

"Well, for one thing, it doesn't mean I'm going to leave you. It could be me leaving, or something happening to me - you foresaw that option yourself, I believe. But it could also be something much smaller. It could be a temporary separation, or a loss of some form of control you now have. Maybe we'll be doing something inadvisable and you'll literally drop me. It could be any of a thousand things. And 'soon enough' - what does that mean, to a man as patient as the Emperor? This is a man who decided to rule the galaxy, but who waited to take up that mantle for decades, patiently setting his pieces in place over the course of an entire lifetime. What he calls 'soon' might be a very long time indeed."

"I do not even wish to drop you," Vader argued. "I do not want to lose you at all."

"And he knows that. It's precisely that fear that he preys on."

"Fear is sacred," said Vader. "It is a part of the Dark Side."

Tarkin's mind gave a flicker of annoyance. He'd always believed in Vader's power, he knew very well that the Force was real, but he'd never truly understood the Dark Side. A person with his limited senses never could. "Do you believe he makes you fear, then, for a purely religious purpose? To make you stronger, or more in tune with the Force? Or do you believe he has some other aim in mind?"

Vader wanted to deny it, but he was increasingly aware that Tarkin would see it in his face if he lied. Vader was used to seeing hidden feelings in everyone around him, while his own feelings, behind the mask, remained opaque to all but Palpatine. In this chamber, that was no longer the case, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Maybe he wanted the mask back after all.

"He is jealous," Vader confessed. "He does not want me in the way that you do. But he wants my attention. My loyalty. He is used to commanding it all, without conflict, and now you have taken some part of it for yourself."

"So he's trying to reclaim your attention," Tarkin mused, as if he hadn't already come to that conclusion. "Should I allow that? Do you want him to have it?"

Vader reached up to him impulsively. Grasped Tarkin's shoulders in both gloved hands. He shouldn't say this, but he'd already decided that he couldn't lie to Tarkin in here. "I want it to be yours."

Tarkin leaned back down, his face coming back into focus, his nose tantalizingly an inch from Vader's. "Then give it to me. Not him. Obey him, yes; he's your master. But he said you could have me. Don't let vague prophecies and small setbacks ruin that for you. What do you feel when your attention is really on me, and not on what he's said about me or what he might do? It's not fear, is it?"

"No," Vader whispered.

With his hands and the Force in concert, Vader pulled Tarkin down to kiss him. He felt the grief and the fear and the physical ache of being touched. It would never be as simple as focusing attention. The Jedi had made that mistake with him, too; Vader's mind didn't work that way. He would never have the luxury of choosing to feel only one thing. But he could endure this, the same way he chose to endure so much, and he could take the pleasure with it, too. He could give to Tarkin what it was possible for him to give.

He felt a little better when they separated. Only a little.

Tarkin's smile, inches from him, was tender and possessive and triumphant. Tarkin knew he'd won this round. And as for the next-

Vader wouldn't try to imagine the next.

"I thought not," said Tarkin. And he leaned down into another kiss, again, again, again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader has half a dozen terrible ideas, Tarkin gives in to temptation, and sex in a meditation chamber is awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more honest summary: WELLP, that was a lot of angsty setup, I need a break from angst, let's bring in the filth now. 
> 
> (I sure hope "I really wanna do this but we shouldn't" is your kink this week. Because that's the sexual energy that A LOT of this fic is going to run on, honestly.)

The trouble with kissing Vader, Tarkin thought, was the sheer number of internal processes it set in motion all at once.

Desire made Tarkin greedy. Selfish. Now that Vader's immediate distress had been dealt with, it made him want to savor this purely for its sensory qualities. Vader's soft lips brushing his lips in the darkness. Vader's cheeks and forehead and other crevices with their strange scarred texture, succumbing to his kisses and his fingertips. The feel of Vader's body shifting under him. The sound of Vader's weak, rapid breath - Tarkin liked that more than he should have, given its possible medical implications; he liked knowing he could set Vader to desperate panting with so little.

But this was a dangerous act. Touching Vader's skin hurt him; kissing his lips brought up trauma and grief. And riding out those difficulties only meant barreling into the next danger: Vader's outsized, touch-starved desire. Vader knew now that his body could be touched, if only in this awkward and imperfect way, and he craved it with an intensity that surpassed mere lust. Tarkin was still repairing some of the property damage Vader had done, on Scarif, for that reason.

If Tarkin were being more careful, he should have insisted on a different way of doing things. He could have demanded that they have sex first, before going in here, so that the two urges could be kept separate. Or that they stop, and go back outside the chamber to finish things safely, as soon as any dangerous level of sexual desire arose. But it appeared that, what Vader craved, Tarkin wanted too. Not as all-consumingly, but enough to allow a rash choice or two.

Tarkin had awoken something in Vader that neither of them could control. For his own selfishly affectionate reasons, he had given Vader something to crave. And then the Emperor had - no, despite the change of plans, it wasn't quite accurate to say the Emperor had denied it. He'd made Vader _fear _that it might be denied. And this only increased the intensity and the danger; it gave Vader reasons to grasp what he wanted even more wildly, more violently, lest it escape from him. What did Palpatine hope to achieve by that? Did he hope that one or both of them would learn some lesson? Did he hope that Vader would, in the classic self-fulfilling manner, drive Tarkin away?

Tarkin needed more information. He had made what he thought was a very mild accusation, and he'd been surprised how intensely it frightened Vader. That meant Tarkin didn't sufficiently understand the situation. He would have to find some careful way, without causing that kind of fear again, to learn. And then he would have to think about what he'd learned. At length. Very carefully.

But it was hard to think carefully when Vader was moving underneath him, kissing him so eagerly, his heavy arms wrapped so tightly around Tarkin's bare shoulders.

"Kiss the sides of my face again," said Vader, breathless. "I liked that."

Tarkin complied, leaning in to the strange delicate scars of Vader's cheeks. He had to be careful about certain things; Vader, ironically, choked very easily. Even an ordinary kiss with tongue was too much for him. But away from Vader's mouth, there was no such restriction. Tarkin let himself lick lightly at Vader's jaw, at the curve of his cheekbone, and Vader's strong, greedy hands began to travel down his body.

He was going to have to stop indulging himself soon. But this was all so good. Vader clearly liked it, and Vader deserved something good. Surely it wouldn't hurt to keep going just a little longer.

He returned to Vader's mouth, guiltily drawn along. He loved the feel of Vader's gloved hands, the fingers digging in down his back. The gloves themselves were of a strange material that resembled leather at first glance, but was subtly heavier, more fluid. The prosthetic mechanisms underneath them were swooningly, crushingly strong. It was still so new, being touched like this by Vader at all.

Vader kissed back, and then broke off. "I have an idea."

"Oh?"

This was how the trouble had started on Scarif: a long stream of very impractical, dangerous ideas. But all Vader said for the moment was, "I could kiss you back."

"You've been doing an adequate job of that already."

"I mean - other places. Like this."

Vader took hold of Tarkin's face with the Force and turned it. That high stiff collar meant there was a limit to what parts of Tarkin's face he could successfully reach. but he managed to pull Tarkin in to kiss the corner of his mouth, and then along his jaw, a clumsy determined line.

Vader kissed in this way with the endearingly artless enthusiasm of a much younger man. Tarkin ought not to have liked that, but he did. He did a short calculation in his head: when Vader had his accident, he'd been, what, twenty-three? He hadn't used his body for affection since then. His sexual methods, using the Force, had become quite sophisticated. But, unmasked and unmagical, he'd reverted to those more innocent ways.

Tarkin's face collided with the edge of Vader's collar as Vader strained to reach more of him, and he pulled away. "Don't overdo it," he chided. "You have sharp edges."

"I do not," Vader protested, but he must have taken the point, because he released Tarkin from his Force-grip. He eyed Tarkin greedily as Tarkin sat up a bit straighter, rubbing his jaw, and his gloved hands traveled lower, edging down to hold Tarkin's hips. "Give me your hand."

Intrigued, Tarkin reached up to Vader's face. As his hand neared Vader, a sudden flicker of fear appeared. He pulled away. "What is it?"

It was gone from view again almost immediately. "Nothing. Give me your hand, I said."

"If you're sure." There was so much about Vader's needs that Tarkin still did not understand. He extended his hand more hesitantly, and this time Vader shut his eyes before bringing it, with the Force, to his lips.

Vader lavished kisses along the heel of his hand, up the crook of the thumb, across the palm and fingers; his panting breath left an impression on the skin nearly as strong as that of his lips. After a moment Tarkin felt a Force-sensation creeping in, a gentle questing pressure that filled every inch of skin on his hand before receding. Only the hand, though. This was how Vader always focused in preparation for sex, exploring the body's nerves so as to know how to stimulate them best. It was harder to ignore the method's strangeness when it was mixed in this way with the physical. What was it like for Vader to feel Tarkin's skin on his ruined lips, and the his lips on Tarkin's skin, simultaneously? Was it twice as good? Or was it less than that, the two sensations conflicting somehow?

Vader's technique improved rapidly as he noticed what parts of the hand responded best. His hands roved lower still - that was a delightful small strangeness, the way Vader could hold Tarkin in place with the Force and still leave his physical hands free. His hands roughly gripped Tarkin's ass through his undergarments, then raised him up to grope at his wiry thighs. His lips worked, the tongue hesitantly flicking out when breath allowed, down the pad of Tarkin's hand to the crook of his wrist.

Tarkin let out a short, ragged sigh.

They really should stop. Pause for a minute, at least, to let Vader put his armor back on so they could finish this outside. They _should,_ but he couldn't bring himself to suggest it yet. Not with Vader so intent on exploring what he could do, not when it had taken such struggle to get to a place where this was possible.

At last Vader nudged Tarkin's hand away, opening his odd yellow eyes. A mischievous smile played at his lips. "There is more of you I could kiss."

"Perhaps. What did you have in mind?" Tarkin wasn't sure what other parts of him could safely fit into the narrow space where Vader's mouth emerged above his collar. Further up the arm, maybe, to his elbow, but that would be less pleasurable than the hands. His leg and foot, perhaps, if Vader was geometrically creative, but Tarkin did not want Vader to kiss his feet tonight. He had been walking, standing, pacing in the rigid boots of his Imperial uniform all day, and his feet needed washing before they could be waved even in a healthy person's face.

"You remember-" Vader trailed his fingers suggestively down the small fold where Tarkin's hip met the back of his thigh. "What I did to you with my hands. On Scarif."

"Yes," said Tarkin, feeling hesitant about where this was going. Vader had made love to Tarkin with his hands, that last morning on Scarif, and it had been terribly good. It had been just what Vader needed. Assuring himself, after being touched by Tarkin in such an earth-shattering way, that his physical self still had its ways of touching Tarkin back.

But... that had required supplies. Lubricant and sterile medical gloves. In Tarkin's haste to take care of mission-critical components, such as the cloaking device - as well as Vader's usual complement of medicines and supplies - he had not thought to ensure that they had those aboard. The _Overseer_'s infirmary presumably had some, but when he considered the logistics of going out and getting them at this point...

"I could try," said Vader. "That. With my mouth."

Tarkin pulled away, appalled nearly into laughter. "Absolutely _not._ Vader, you can't even handle my tongue in your mouth; how in the galaxy do you think you're going to _suck-_"

"I would not have to take it in," Vader insisted, apparently earnest. "I could simply - kiss its outside. Taste it a moment."

"No," said Tarkin sternly, even as his traitorous cock twitched slightly, savoring the image. He knew how Vader's arousal and pleasure, even in here, depended on his own. Vader wasn't fully sharing Tarkin's senses yet, but he could always sense emotions, and sexual interest was an emotion of sorts. Perhaps Vader wouldn't be having such ridiculous ideas if Tarkin's body wasn't silently egging him on. "Perhaps we should go back outside. Finish this in our usual way."

"I do not want to," said Vader. "I want to feel you on my skin. We were denied Mustafar. Would you deny me this?"

Tarkin found his mind inexorably drawn to the question of what would happen if he did deny Vader, one stubborn will pitted directly against the other. Would Vader try to force him again, or would he simply become more and more desparate? Could Tarkin, perhaps, make Vader beg? He imagined for a moment what that would look like, Vader's naked face drawn up in a rictus of need, promising Tarkin anything he liked, any debasement, if Tarkin would only fuck him the way that he wanted.

But - no. This wasn't that sort of game.

Tarkin took a deep breath. He would need to be steady for this.

"I don't want to deny you," he said. "But I am concerned about safety. So if you don't want to finish this outside, you'll have to convince me you've come up with some alternative that isn't a medical hazard."

Vader's hands flexed suggestively against the backs of Tarkin's thighs. "If you will not take my mouth, what about my hands? That worked before."

Tarkin frowned slightly, embarrassed. "Yes, it did, didn't it? Only, on that occasion, we had lubricant, tissues, and medical gloves. I don't suppose you thought to bring those."

"I brought tissues," Vader offered, levitating a small pack of them into Tarkin's peripheral vision. Oh dear, he'd even brought them into the meditation chamber in advance; in one sense that meant he'd done a better job thinking ahead than Tarkin had. In another, it felt... presumptuous. "Not the others. It was your duty to ensure that the _Overseer_ was supplied for its journey. This sort of failure is unlike you."

"In my defense, I was assigned this mission on extremely short notice." Tarkin squirmed slightly. "We could get the supplies from the infirmary. I'm sure they have something."

"I am not letting you out of this chamber before you have given me what I want." It was nearly a threat, yet Tarkin thought he saw fear in Vader's eyes. As if, after leaving the meditation chamber even briefly, he worried that Tarkin might not return. "There are other options. If you will not even take my hands, I can fuck you with the Force while you kiss me. Or you could use your own hand. Or-"

Tarkin sat back, straightening his spine. "All right," he interrupted. "You've convinced me. We can try, under two conditions. Two _strict_ conditions, non-negotiable."

Vader raised his hairless brows. "What conditions?"

"First, you have to put your mask back on."

Vader pulled his hands out from under Tarkin. "That goes against the point of this."

"Have you listened to the way you've been panting, Vader? You already choked from sheer overstimulation once tonight. I don't know the precise uptake capacity of your lungs, but it's clear this sort of pleasure causes strain. If we continue, that's only going to increase. Imagine me being summoned to explain to your master why you accidentally asphyxiated while trying to fuck me without your mask."

"My lungs would not give out instantly. I would feel it beginning to happen. I would have time to put the mask back on if required."

And what did it say about Vader, that he found that scenario acceptable? As if the fear and discomfort of a pulmonary emergency was completely fine. But if Tarkin veered off into a lecture about that, it would only make Vader crankier, and they'd end up arguing about it all night instead of doing what they wanted to.

"Perhaps you would," he said, as neutrally as he could. "But this is our first time trying anything like this, and I won't assume any more risk than absolutely necessary. Non-negotiable, as I said." He leaned forward and stroked behind Vader's ear, softening his tone. "The mask only covers the front of your face. I'll still be able to touch your skin."

Vader made a face, but didn't protest further. "And the second condition?"

Tarkin put a hand down, gingerly touching Vader's chest and torso. Vader had found him a spot to sit which wasn't directly impeded by any medical equipment. But very close by, there were all sorts of irregular hard lumps under the black fabric, the edges of medical devices Tarkin couldn't identify. "I'm afraid you're either going to need to immobilize me, or we need to find a different position. Or both. You don't have your outer armor holding your medical apparatus in place, and if I were to thoughtlessly move my hips, for instance, I don't want the risk of dislodging something."

"That is possible," said Vader. The padded surface on which he was lying tilted forward, slowly becoming a chair again. Vader made a few other adjustments, and raised Tarkin in the air to strip him fully. When the motion stopped, Tarkin found himself sitting in Vader's lap, facing him. He'd been pushed several inches backwards, closer to Vader's knees than to his waist. In this position, the usual difference in height was negated, and there was still plenty of room for Tarkin to lean in and kiss him, for now.

"That seems like it should do," said Tarkin, and he was surprised what a nervous thrill he felt, saying so. They were really doing this. It still felt like a terrible idea, but he wanted it, and he'd mitigated the risks that he knew how to mitigate.

"I have a condition of my own," said Vader.

"Oh?"

There was mischief, again, in Vader's smile. "If I cannot kiss you, I will have to make my mark on you in another way. You will take pain for me. You would not have had to, if you gave me all of what I wanted."

"Very well," said Tarkin, suppressing a smile of his own. Tarkin liked when Vader hurt him; their sexual encounters had almost always involved pain. If this was meant to be a punishment, it wouldn't work. But he suspected it was only a gesture of petulance, a small consensual way for Vader to vent his frustrations.

Vader's hands traveled around to grip Tarkin's sides; his thumbs stroked, lightly, across the skin. "One more thing. Not a condition, but a request."

"I'm listening."

"Let me attune to your senses first, before I put the mask on. And then let me have one more kiss."

Tarkin smiled slightly. It was a reasonable request this time, one that didn't come with any medical dangers he could see. "Very well. Shall we?"

Vader needed no further encouragement. Unusually, he began at Tarkin's hands. At the one he'd been kissing, first, traveling carefully up the arm. He matched it with the same process on the other side, attuning to the fingertips and traveling all the way up to the shoulder, before reaching up through Tarkin's neck and head, and down along the rest of his body. He paid special attention to Tarkin's mouth, lingering at the lips and slipping partway inside. It wasn't designed to mimic a kiss, but it felt somewhat like one anyway, and Tarkin's toes curled at the feeling of Vader mentally settling in to him, attending to the details of his body as only Vader ever could.

Sometimes this process didn't feel like much, just an efficient prodding and testing as Vader familiarized himself again with Tarkin's nerve endings. Other times, especially if they were already pent up and craving each other, it was a terribly sensual act in itself. Today was one of the latter occasions, and Tarkin savored it accordingly. He'd never been able to watch Vader's face while he did this, and he looked steadily into Vader's eyes now, fascinated. Mainly Vader looked like he was concentrating, but there was clear pleasure in it, too. When his Force-touch found an especially good spot, Tarkin could see Vader's eyelids flutter, hear the slight hitch of his breath, so precisely in time with Tarkin's sensation. He'd already known it worked this way for Vader, but there was something almost obscenely intimate about _watching_ it happen.

Back in the days when this was only about sex, Vader had referred to his partners as toys. Mere instruments he could manipulate to produce the sensations he wanted to feel. That was almost what this felt like - as though he'd walked in on Vader touching himself. Except that Tarkin felt it too; Tarkin's body was where the sensations _lived,_ and they all felt good. Strange, but good, like almost everything Vader ever did to him.

Vader roved downwards in his usual way, chest and back, sides and belly, and he looked straight into Tarkin's eyes as he reached the base of Tarkin's waiting erection.

Tarkin found himself holding his breath. This was part of what they had agreed to: if Vader was going to fuck him, then Vader had to focus on this, too. But it felt somehow dangerous. Vader's Force-touch teased up the length of him, maddeningly slow - he was doing that on purpose, Tarkin suspected, drawing it out. But Vader's expression didn't look mischievous, only absorbed. Tarkin watched as his lips parted and his eyes half-closed; as he swallowed hard, trying to control his strained lungs. His eyes didn't look very focused, but he was still holding Tarkin's gaze.

If Vader fed on Tarkin's pleasure, and watching the pleasure on Vader's face gave Tarkin an erotic charge, then - oh, dear, this could get very circular very quickly.

Tarkin was the one who broke eye contact, taking a shaky breath. He waited until Vader had stroked all the way to the tip of him. The whole thing likely had taken no more than ten seconds, but it felt longer.

"Just enough to attune your senses, Vader," he chided. He was pleased that his voice didn't waver. "Not any more. Don't cheat."

There was a definite glint of mischief in Vader's eye this time. "Perhaps my focus faltered from its usual state. Perhaps I should try again."

"Absolutely not."

It was tempting - it would have been _easy_ to keep going like that. And going. And going... Until Vader seriously hurt himself, which was much more likely than being able to finish.

Vader didn't argue more. He dropped his focus to Tarkin's other intimate areas, exploring the scrotum, the perineum, the inner thighs. He slipped inside Tarkin to explore there, which was nearly as intense as his cock had been; Tarkin reflexively shut his eyes. He wasn't completely sure his will would hold out, if he saw Vader's face rapt with sexual pleasure again.

And then the tension eased as Vader moved on. Tarkin's thighs, his calves, his feet. Tarkin opened his eyes again and pondered what must be going on behind that focused expression. How did it feel? Did Vader subjectively inhabit both bodies in their fullness, both pulses, both rhythms of breath? Did he ever get confused about which body was his, mistakenly try to move a limb that was actually Tarkin's? Or was it more impressionistic than that - just flickers of sensation, only the ones that were interesting to him?

The Force-touch finished its journey and winked out, and Tarkin found himself looking into Vader's eyes, very conscious not only of arousal but of his body in space, his skin in the sweltering pressurized air.

Vader hadn't moved his hands at all during this process, but he moved them now, taking Tarkin's hands in his. "That kiss, then."

Tarkin leaned in for it immediately. He pressed his lips to Vader's, and Vader pressed back hungrily. Vader had wanted this specific thing, a kiss while fully sharing Tarkin's senses. Tarkin tried to imagine that from Vader's point of view, the sensory hall of mirrors it must be, and then he gave up trying to imagine and just savored it. He didn't break the kiss until Vader did, nudging him away to sit straight again and letting go of his hands.

"Now the mask," said Tarkin, before Vader could find a reason for further delay. Vader pouted, but he levitated the mask into his hands and carefully affixed it back in place. The suit's mechanisms clicked together, and the sound of his weak erratic breathing melted back into the more familiar version of the sound, the steady mechanical flow of air that Vader was known for.

The mask was a solid barrier, carrying the trademark harsh lines of the appearance Vader showed to the world. But even masked, Vader was still offering up so much. His body, clothed but more vulnerable without the heaviness of the armor. His physical presence, alive and moving. That tantalizing patch of skin at the top and back of his head. The shape of Vader was different in this chamber, somehow more human, and they could still tangle together here in ways the outside world didn't allow.

Tarkin cradled the back of Vader's head in one hand. In this position, with Vader sitting up, he had more access than lying down. Strange, to feel the size and shape of Vader's head in his hand, in place of that fearsome flared helmet. He moved his fingers, gently stroking Vader's skin. Vader responded by returning his attention to Tarkin's cock. A soft, slow, teasing pressure, moving along the skin.

The next second, the pain began. A startling lash across his shoulders, thin and stinging, like a blow from something single-tailed. It seemed to burn as it landed, leaving a heat that lingered on his skin in the already-stifling air.

"The mask," Vader said, his voice deep and commanding again. "And the pain."

Vader could be creative with the sensations he made; that was part of the appeal of Force sex, that it didn't have to exactly resemble anything physical. Tarkin wondered idly what had inspired this one. For him, it brought to mind a smaller, safer, recreational version of the fire-whips that some species used to keep their workers in line. Bright and glowing and flexible. He shut his eyes again as another landed, and another, slowly building force and speed.

"I did not give you permission to be still," said Vader. "Put your hands on me."

Tarkin's eyebrow quirked; usually it wasn't a question of permission to be still, but of Vader forcibly holding him that way. He'd already put his right hand to the back of Vader's head, but he resumed moving those fingers gently, as if stroking a pet animal. With his left, he cautiously reached forward and touched Vader's chest, tracing the irregular outlines that lay under the armor there. "Are you saying my hands weren't on you before?"

"Hold on to me," Vader instructed, ignoring the jab. "Both ways. Anchor yourself to me while I hurt you."

Tarkin pressed closer, then. He took hold of Vader's shoulder, and he was surprised how that delighted him: he could feel the shoulder's shape, the firm round lump suggesting bone and muscle, rather than the heavy plate that typically lay here. He leaned forward, and his forehead came to rest against Vader's masked forehead. They could easily have been kissing, without that necessary barrier in place.

He exhaled carefully like that, leaning into Vader, breathing through it while Vader stroked him and beat him. When they played like this, Tarkin could judge Vader's mood by how quickly and how far he ramped up the pain. This time it increased very quickly; he could hardly count the strokes as they lashed and burned in a pattern over his back. Frustration and need - quite a lot of need, judging from how that soft pressure moved back and forth around his cock in time with the pain, both building until he could hardly think of anything else.

He wanted more words, though. Tarkin liked his mind engaged, not only his body. But there were so many emotions being passed back and forth between them already; this seemed like a time to elicit words gently, with simple prompts, not by complaining as he often did.

"I'm yours," he breathed.

"You are mine," Vader agreed. Without a pause in what he was doing with the Force, he reached out with his gloved hands and caressed Tarkin's chest, his thighs. "All of you. All mine."

Tarkin was momentarily distracted by the sheer number of different things Vader was doing to him at once. That was a part of what attracted him to Vader, he supposed: power like this, _skill_ like this, unlike any other form of power in the galaxy.

Such power, and yet, in a way, such vulnerability. Such helpless need beneath the violent bluster. In some sense Vader's very being engaged both sides of Tarkin at once, making him want to claim and be claimed, control and be controlled. Destroy - he would never admit this to himself, except in the heat of passion - and be destroyed.

"I'm your favorite toy," he said, leaning into Vader's hands. He felt Vader's small answering shift underneath him. Palpatine could forbid them from certain words, but there were loopholes in that forbiddance, and Tarkin felt bold enough, giddy with pain, to press up against their edges. "Yours to hurt. Yours to take pleasure from. Yours to _please._"

"Yes," said Vader's deep voice so close to him.

"Yours to learn from," Tarkin ventured, bringing his left hand up under Vader's masked chin. That had been a particular part of their dynamic at the beginning; Vader had possessed great skill with the Force, but not with the psychological rules and niceties of dominance, and Tarkin had enjoyed correcting him. Vader, too, though he rarely admitted it, had appreciated the chance to improve. "Yours to _need._ Yours to adore."

"Let me touch you with my hand," Vader said suddenly, his gloved hand playing at the top of Tarkin's thigh even as he said it. It was odd, being pleasured this way, being suddenly reminded that the lovely thing stroking him closer and closer to his peak wasn't _real._ "Just along the shaft. Just a little."

Tarkin briefly tried to calculate, in his fevered mind, the odds that Vader's gauntleted hands might carry some awful disease. There were too many unknowns in that calculation, and he quickly gave up. Vader was most certainly not allowed to be inside him without the medical gloves and lubricant. But, given that Tarkin allowed Vader to touch his skin at all, this request didn't present much additional risk.

"All right," he said, and Vader took hold of him gently, running his gloved fingers up the length of him. He didn't stop what he was doing with the Force there either, and the resulting doubled sensation was bizarre. It was not unpleasant, though, and it seemed to be what Vader needed. The pain was still going but it had receded, a rapid background rhythm, eclipsed by the pleasure.

Tarkin's own breath had become ragged. He had to concentrate to prevent himself from gripping too tightly at Vader's head, disturbing the skin. He wondered if Vader would bother to say anything if that happened, or if he'd try to ride out whatever pain it caused, too afraid of not being touched to object.

He let his left hand stroke slowly down Vader's arm, the way he'd done on Scarif while Vader's hands worked at him. And then - up the thigh, or at least the upper half of it, which lay still accessible between them. Right to the crook of Vader's hip, where-

Tarkin paused.

Normally, an impenetrable black plate of armor covered Vader's groin. But that was one of the heavy pieces that the meditation chamber had removed. Vader was still covered there, but only in the same thick black protective fabrics that clothed the rest of him. If Tarkin dared, he might... well, through the fabric, he might just be able to touch Vader there in a way Vader would feel.

He didn't dare, not quite. He wanted to. But if merely kissing someone for the first time since his accident had provoked a violent reaction, this would be worse. Particularly if it was done without a warning.

"Yes," said Vader, at the very same moment Tarkin was about to pull away. He parted his thighs, making Tarkin shift slightly where he was balanced on Vader's knees. "Go on."

"You can't-" said Tarkin, agonized. He was so close, himself, that he could hardly think straight. "You can't agree to something new like this in the middle of a scene, Vader-"

Vader's masked voice had gone silky. "Do you think I did not anticipate this? We would be doing worse than this tonight if we were on Mustafar as we wished to be. Give me what I want."

Tarkin tried and failed to catch his breath. All the Force-sensations around him had, if anything, intensified. They hadn't negotiated this at all. It was a terrible idea. They should _not._

"You are - mentally prepared?" he heard himself saying. "As you were for the kisses?"

"Yes."

He grinned slightly, nervously. "Promise you won't throw me out on the floor again?"

"I swear it."

Tarkin definitely should not even consider this. He should not, but he inched his hand forward.

He wasn't entirely sure what he would find. One of the crueller rumors about Vader, which Tarkin sometimes noticed circulating behind the Dark Lord's back, was that he no longer had genitals at all. Tarkin didn't put much stock in those rumors - how would anyone in the Imperial military even know? - but he had long ago surmised that, whatever Vader had, it no longer functioned well. His experiences with Vader and sex supported that premise. Vader might be highly skilled with the Force, it might even be as pleasurable to him as regular sex, but he was still a _man,_ one with a notably high sex drive and with fairly promiscuous habits. If he reliably got hard, if he could come when he wanted to, then he'd have tried taking his armor off with his other submissives years ago.

But just because a body part wasn't performing, that didn't mean it had become devoid of nerve endings. Tarkin had been around long enough to know that, too.

He let his fingers explore, as carefully as he could, trying to focus through the intensity of the sensations that still played across his body. He felt only those irregular plasticky shapes at first, medical devices of the same kinds Vader had elsewhere. For waste disposal, probably. Tarkin tried not to jostle those. He felt breathless and clumsy; he wanted better for Vader than this childish pawing.

But after several long moments he did find something that felt right. A soft shape of about the right size, indistinct through the suit's fabric. He paused and looked up at Vader a moment, steadying himself; that masked face wasn't giving much away.

"Go on," said Vader.

Trying to breathe slowly and keep his head, Tarkin carefully stroked at what he'd found with a pair of fingers. Just the way he'd done with Vader's thigh, just firmly enough to have a hope that it would be felt through the fabric. No more than that. Just-

Vader's hands tightened around him, one at his hip and one around Tarkin's own cock, to the point of pain.

"I-" said Tarkin, startled, and Vader readjusted his grip, moving his hands to a less sensitive area. "Was that-"

"Do not stop," Vader instructed, in a voice that brooked no disagreement at all.

Tarkin kept going, then, just with those two fingers. He could scarcely feel what he was doing, through the intensity of what Vader did back to him. Vader's hands, at his waist now, clenched so tightly that Tarkin was afraid they might do internal damage. The pattern of sharp swift lashes at his back seemed to blur, and then it resolved into a different form of pain entirely, something cracking and burning under his skin, spreading to fill his whole body, inside and out. And the thing working at his cock, _that_ didn't stop; that sped its rhythm, tightening around him.

The pain was very nearly too much. He should stop. But-

He felt himself lifted bodily in the air, bent backwards, his hand slipping from between Vader's thighs as he rose. He couldn't move, and he was too far gone to even tell if that was the Force holding him, or his own nerves shorting out from overstimulation. He couldn't speak, even his safeword; he couldn't think clearly enough to decide if his safeword was what he wanted. He didn't even properly feel pleasure anymore, only a boiling intensity that surpassed any other distinction. He thought he might scream, but he couldn't do that, either; there was no sensible outlet for this feeling at all. And then-

Then his body buckled, and his orgasm spilled out of him, barely recognizable. Just a white-hot, trembling shift in direction. Pain flowing out instead of in. And then a deep, ecstatic relief that came only in pulses; _then_ the physical pleasure, belatedly, trembling through him. He couldn't see; he couldn't think; he might be dying. He did not want it to end.

It did end, eventually, and he fell back into a heap on Vader's lap, hands shaking, limbs weak. He pitched forward, and Vader caught him. He was dimly aware that Vader had telekinetically snatched up a handful of those tissues, when he came, and caught the mess before it spilled onto anything important. He was mildly impressed Vader had kept enough presence of mind for that. Tarkin's whole body was a mess, though, covered in sweat, unable to hold himself up. He let himself hang where Vader held him, trying to put his thoughts into a semblance of order.

"I did not throw you," said Vader. He sounded proud of himself.

"I..." said Tarkin, panting. He tried to pull himself together; he did not like to show weakness, even here. "I noticed that."

"I found an alternate outlet. You endured it well."

"Nngh," said Tarkin. He wasn't sure if _endured_ was the verb he'd have chosen. _Endured_ implied that he'd made some conscious choice, that he'd put in an effort to be strong. Instead, that final blast of sensation had simply... happened. It had been larger than him; it had made his mind go away. There was nothing he could have done in either direction, to resist or to welcome it in.

Vader had hurt him worse than this before; he had gone far past Tarkin's limits as a masochist in the past, but that had been pain in configurations that made more sense, pain that corresponded to specific body parts and forms of imagined injury. Not this overwhelming, undifferentiated, uncategorizable thing.

"Shall I find you your tea?" said Vader. "Or wrap you in a blanket?"

"At some point," said Tarkin, catching his breath, "you are going. To get tired. Of that blanket joke."

Vader had tried to wrap him in a blanket, at one point, on Scarif. Tarkin had been insulted by the attempt, and for some reason Vader found this endlessly amusing. "There is nothing wrong with blankets. Many submissives find them soothing. You instructed me to learn about aftercare."

Tarkin couldn't think of many things he wanted less than a blanket, right now, in this sticky red heat. He did want tea, but that would mean getting up and letting go of Vader. Maybe next time they did this, he'd make some tea ahead of time and sneak it in. It wasn't as though a beverage could get cold in here.

As soon as Tarkin's breathing had returned to normal, Vader removed his mask and dragged Tarkin in for another kiss. He was startled at first, then leaned in to it; in a strange way, it grounded him. This was a normal, pleasant, good thing to do. Just brushing his lips against his lover's lips, relaxing into each other in the afterglow.

"Well," he managed, when they separated. He sat up a little straighter, getting his thoughts back into order. "We did that."

"We did."

"You're all right?" he said, peering at Vader's expression. Vader had kept his power of speech more successfully, but he looked nearly as affectionately shellshocked as Tarkin felt.

"Are you?" Vader asked back, with a wry grin.

Tarkin shook his head slightly, less in denial, more at the sheer impossibility of answering the question. For either of them, he supposed. But they were here and together, and they'd survived it. "I should..."

Now that the immediate adrenaline had drained, he was exhausted. It had been an extremely long day, and they'd already stayed up later than they should have; military schedules assumed that everyone went to sleep promptly after their shifts, and the next morning would be correspondingly early. What he _should_ do was bid Vader goodnight, get out of the meditation chamber, return to his own quarters, take a very thorough shower, and then sleep. The trouble was that these would all involve moving.

"I have an idea," said Vader.

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. "Another one?"

Vader's gloved hand ran up Tarkin's spine, just a simple motion, but it made him shiver. His nerves were still in an oversensitive state, "I noticed a fantasy you have had before. Wishing to fall asleep beside me. We... could try that here."

Tarkin sleepily ran through that scenario in his head. He ought to be in his own quarters, in case something went wrong during the night and he had to be notified. Except that Vader was the commanding officer here; so logically, if something did go wrong, Vader would be notified first. He glanced speculatively at the padded chair they were sitting in. "I'm not convinced there's room."

"I could lie on my back, as is my custom, and you could lie atop me."

"Is that safe without your armor?" He glanced at Vader's belly and chest, where all those mysterious inorganic shapes lurked under the fabric. "Won't my weight disturb something?"

Vader seemed to consider this a moment. "Here. We will try it this way."

He waved a hand. The chair slowly tilted back again, and a couple of pieces of armor dislodged themselves from the shelves where the chamber's mechanisms had put them. Vader picked Tarkin up out of the way and reattached his armor to himself with the Force: not all of the pieces, but the chest and abdominal plates, and the one at his hips. And, finally, the mask. He set Tarkin back down on top of him lightly, sprawled in a position that evenly distributed his weight.

"My armor will hold my life-support equipment in place," Vader explained, "and will support your weight. Are you comfortable?"

"I... think so," said Tarkin. He was so tired he could have slept on rocks. Vader's chestplate had more or less the sensory qualities of rocks, but if Tarkin let his neck relax, then his head was nestled comfortably into the crook of Vader's shoulder. That... that was nice. If he breathed deeply like this, he could smell Vader, a startlingly normal smell, not like death or illness but like ordinary male skin, with a faint hint of sweat and a fainter tang of metal. He wasn't sure how quickly he could fall asleep this way, and his joints were going to hate him for it in the morning, but he liked it. It was still so new and strange, being able to hold Vader the way he'd hold an ordinary lover.

"If you like," said Vader, "I can use the Force to make you sleep."

Tarkin looked up blearily. "I thought it didn't work that way."

Vader reached up and stroked Tarkin's hair. "You have an exceptionally strong mind. Even I could not suggest you to sleep if you did not want to. But if you are already tired, and wish for sleep, I can nudge you towards it."

"What about you?" said Tarkin. "I assumed you couldn't sleep in your armor." Let alone with another person's weight sprawled over him. Vader might be superhumanly strong, but this couldn't be a sensation that he was accustomed to.

"It is... more difficult," Vader admitted. "But this is not my full armor."

"If we're fighting pirates tomorrow, you'll need your rest."

"Let me worry about that. If I wish to remove you, I will remove you."

Tarkin sighed, too tired to properly argue. Vader seemed so determined to risk his own health. Tarkin didn't like those risks, and he didn't trust Vader to weigh them properly. Yet... in the end, it really was only Vader who could weigh them. Vader knew the weight of his own desires, and Vader was the one who suffered most when he went too far. Tarkin could only guess at that calculus. A sleepless night was a small thing, as health risks went. Perhaps Tarkin could allow him the dignity of choosing it, when he'd been denied so much else.

"All right," he said, setting his head back down.

Vader brushed that gloved hand, soothingly, across Tarkin's head again.

"Sleep," he said, and the world blurred into something comfortable, soft and dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to randomInternetWeirdo who, uh, pointed out the issue with Vader and breathing and sex way back in chapter 10 of "Sea Life of Scarif." Fortunately Tarkin had three weeks to think about it and, thus, the crisis was averted. Or that part of it, anyway.
> 
> up next: back to our regularly scheduled unpleasant things. :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the previous chapter's sleeping arrangements backfire, things go boom, Tarkin is deeply ungrateful about being rescued, and Vader contemplates going off his meds.

There was a crash and the blare of an alarm, and Tarkin startled awake, utterly disoriented. What in the galaxy was he lying on? Why did everything hurt? What was that alarm, why was it so blasted hot in here, why was everything _red-_

He felt himself flung away from where he was lying. In the next second, as the room spun around him, he recalled enough information for vague bearings. He'd fallen asleep in the meditation chamber with Vader.

The alarm meant the _Overseer_ was under attack.

Vader was awake, clearly; he'd been the one to fling Tarkin into the air, and he'd set the meditation chamber to open, but that had apparently only just started, and before it actually let them out it first had to depressurize and put Vader's armor back on him, in a sequence which felt even slower and more ponderous than its usual.

The _Overseer_ was cloaked. If they were under attack, the pirates had found them _despite_ the cloak, which meant they must have been scanning the area magnetically. That was expensive and difficult to do: they must have some major operation hidden close by, and must be anticipating attention from someone powerful enough to use cloaking. If Tarkin could get to the bridge-

There was another crash, unbelievably loud, and an impact that shook everything. A blast of light, a rush of escaping warm air, and a disorienting spin as he was thrown in another direction. It took a moment for all Tarkin's senses to line back up and make sense of it. A durasteel beam had come loose and crashed through the meditation chamber's walls in a shower of sparks, straight through the space where Tarkin had been hovering, heavy enough to crush Vader where he lay. Vader had narrowly Force-deflected it, sending it slamming down onto some mechanical part of the chamber instead. The impact sent up a wave of other shrapnel and debris as the chamber shrieked in its mechanical death throes. The next second, Tarkin dropped to the floor outside the chamber.

"Vader!" Tarkin called, panicked.

Vader was impatiently pulling on the parts of his armor with the Force now. "Get to the bridge," he growled. "I will catch up."

Tarkin was, inconveniently, naked. He paused long enough to snatch his discarded uniform up from its shelf and to quickly pull his trousers on. Outside the meditation chamber, a series of smaller, more insistent beeps made themselves known underneath the main alarm. The room's comm system was clamoring for Vader's attention, and the comm link in Tarkin's uniform pocket was also chiming. Neither sound had been audible to a pair of sleeping people within the meditation chamber. Whoever installed this chamber either hadn't been thinking of emergency midnight situations like these, or hadn't realized how well the chamber's walls blocked sound.

He yanked out his own comm link and fumbled it into operation. It wasn't Commander Martagon's voice, but some hapless member of the night crew. "-bridge to Governor Tarkin, come _in_, sir-"

"Tarkin to bridge. What in blazes is going on?"

There was more static on the comm than there ought to be. Tarkin hated this part, rushing through the bowels of the ship without being able to see the larger picture. He strode through the door and broke into a run up the Overseer's short corridors, shirtless, carrying the rest of his uniform awkwardly under his arm. "The pirates - saw us through the cloaking, sir - attacked - damage- jamming our- couldn't get through to you or Lord-"

"Are we outgunned, then, or merely incompetent?" The ship thundered and rocked in response to another shot, and Tarkin nearly lost his balance. He wasn't used anymore to ships of this small size, to the speed with which the damage of a firefight could pierce their shields and render them to nothing.

"Outgunned, sir, we're very outgunned." Whoever this officer was, he obviously hadn't seen much combat; he was rambling in a panic. "There's so many-"

"Then get us back into hyperspace," Tarkin snapped. The door to the bridge was in sight now. He suddenly heard the heavy running footsteps of Vader behind him, catching up. Even in that weighty armor, Vader still ran faster than most people when he wanted to. "What are you waiting for?"

"-trying to calculate a course, sir, but-"

There was another, louder crash, and the entire corridor in front of Tarkin collapsed in a heave of sparking, splintering metal. He felt himself thrown backwards, and realized only belatedly that it was Vader, Force-pulling him out of the way. A heavy piece of debris careened past his head, and one side-swiped Vader in the chest before careening away. The blaring clarion call that meant _battle stations,_ echoing through the corridors, shifted to the higher-pitched wail of _abandon ship._

"This way," said Vader, pivoting into a side corridor.

"-shields are down, sir-" said the officer on the comm link, as if the _abandon ship_ alarm wasn't already enough information. If this man died because he was standing on the bridge blathering instead of following protocol, it would not be Tarkin's fault. "They're targeting the main reactor-"

"If you can't _do_ anything further," Tarkin barked into his comm link in exasperation, "then get to the escape pods. All of you. That's an order. Tarkin out." He switched the device off.

If he remembered the layout of the ship properly, then they likely could not get to the escape pods past that awful pile of collapsed bulkhead, but that wasn't Tarkin's problem, either.

Vader was ahead of him now. He found where the escape pods were, Force-opening one and vaulting in. There was another crash, and a sudden freezing blast of wind as the ship's hull rent open entirely. Blast doors at both ends of the corridor began contracting shut. Tarkin found himself sucked helplessly through the air, his stomach giving a dizzy lurch. Except -

Except he was careening, not towards the hull breach, but towards the escape pod.

Vader's hand was outstretched, telekinetically yanking him along. Tarkin landed in a heap on the escape pod's floor, his uniform and comm link falling out of his hands. The pod shut its door and launched.

They spun free of the _Overseer,_ now, but they were by no means free of the actual battle. The _Overseer,_ in flames and rapidly breaking apart, was surrounded by about a dozen ships of similar size, as well as a mess of small fighters. Several other escape pods had made it out, but laser fire still lanced back and forth, as the pirates took pot shots at the survivors. Another pod, nearby, broke into flaming pieces before Tarkin's eyes.

Tarkin couldn't see any clear identifying marks on the ships. They didn't resemble the Rebel fleet, with its bulbous command ships and neat rows of X-wings; they clearly weren't Imperial. But there were too many of them, and too well-organized, to be a mere small band of raiders or mercenaries. One of the major cartels, then, defending some private operation. In _his_ sector. Tarkin was extremely offended.

With pirates and organized criminals, normally, the modus operandi was to parley first, then to disable the ship and board it. The goal was to obtain what the Empire had, be it valuable items or intelligence or hostages. This group had bypassed all that and gone straight to destruction, aiming to leave no witnesses alive. Defending something, then, for certain. Most likely the very thing he'd come looking for.

Vader sat hunched and facing the helm. Their pod weaved and dodged as it spun away from the battle, narrowly avoiding the laser fire and all sorts of other debris. It was a small space, without much in it but the two of them and a couple of padded benches, and Tarkin's body lurched from left to right with momentum.

"Are you showing off?" he demanded in Vader's direction after a particularly disorienting spin.

"I am landing us safely," said Vader. "You could thank me."

"I'll thank you when we _are_ safely landed," Tarkin snapped back, but he took the point. He put a hand on the wall and took a few breaths. This had all happened so fast. Tarkin wasn't even sure where they _were._

Several facts, slow and ice-cold and one at a time, were gradually becoming apparent to him.

First: there was a blue-green gas giant in the sky nearby. They weren't spiraling down towards that, but towards a smaller, white sphere. If the Overseer had kept to its planned course, then this was one of the ice moons of Hethea, one of the furthest-out, least-charted planets in the Eriadu system. It was one of the first regions the _Overseer_'s night crew had been planning to scan, while Tarkin slept, which meant he and Vader couldn't have been asleep very long. He wished he knew _which_ of the ice moons this was; Hethea had at least three.

Second: this model of escape pod did not, in fact, have controls. There were engines, but they worked autopilot, with the sole intent of safely bringing any survivors, regardless of piloting skill, to the nearest solid ground.

Tarkin glanced over at Vader, who was looking intently out the pod's forward-facing window as it swooped vertiginously moonward. "I thought you were flying this thing."

"I am," said Vader. He waved a hand vaguely in the air, and the escape pod did another barrel roll. Tarkin clutched at the wall.

Three light fighters broke off from the pirates' ranks to give chase. Vader deftly maneuvered around them, evading their crossfire. He flicked the pod suddenly sideways, causing Tarkin to lurch off his bench - proper seat belts were another thing this escape pod didn't have - and the three fighters crashed spectacularly into each other, leaving a train of debris, which Vader also dodged.

"You _are_ showing off," Tarkin complained, picking himself back up.

Vader didn't respond, intent on his ridiculous way of flying. Tarkin looked out through the side window and returned his attention to the battle above them. The _Overseer_ was entirely unrecognizable by now, reduced to a vague cloud of broken components.

Here was a third fact, then: the _Overseer_'s crew, save for him and Vader, was most likely all dead, and it was partly due to Tarkin's own negligence. They had faced overwhelming firepower, of course, but the night crew on the bridge were also inexperienced, panicky and slow to react in the face of danger. If Tarkin had been able to get to the bridge more quickly, he might have turned things around, if only in the direction of a swifter escape.

Or he might be dead along with them now, trapped there on the other side of the collapsed corridor, which was disturbing but useless to contemplate.

But Tarkin had not heard the bridge crew's calls until they escalated to a full-scale alarm, because Tarkin had not been in his quarters. He had been sleeping with Vader in Vader's meditation chamber. He had left his comm link on a shelf outside. And Vader, due to a flaw in the meditation chamber's design, hadn't heard the summons either. Tarkin had known that it was against regulations to spend the night outside his quarters, precisely in case of this sort of emergency, but he'd been tired and affectionate and easily tempted, and he'd told himself nothing would happen.

Vader had accused him yesterday of liking work, even tedious work, more than he liked intimacy. It was not an unfamiliar accusation; Thalassa had made countless similar ones. Most of Tarkin's long-term partners had. But the truth was that Tarkin prioritized his work because lives, ships, worlds were on the line. When he let himself indulge in something other than work, it put them all at risk. Just like this. People with real power, Tarkin's kind of power, couldn't ever truly put it down.

Well. At any rate, it was unlikely anyone would live to report him for this.

He hoped that he would live to see these pirates die a slow and painful death. He hoped it would happen in front of him.

They had fallen away from the main battle now, and the pirate ships had stopped taking pot shots. Instead the pod came up on the ice moon's thin atmosphere, beginning to shake slightly in the turbulence of re-entry. They were on the moon's night side, and there was a rather large storm brewing below them, which surprised Tarkin. He knew the Eriadu system fairly well, and he didn't recall any of Hethea's ice moons being known for storms.

The pod swooped at an uncomfortable angle through the storm, buffeted this way and that, either by the snow-laden wind or by Vader's own erratic piloting skill.

"If I didn't know better," said Tarkin, hanging on for dear life, "I'd say you were aiming deliberately at the storm's center. That's not going to be an easy place to send out a distress call."

Vader, absorbed in his flying, did not look up. "I feel something."

Tarkin frowned at him. "The weapon?"

"I do not know. But it is at the storm's center."

Tarkin took a short breath. Even if this _was_ the weapon they were looking for, it would surely be guarded by... well, more pirates, at minimum. And a potentially deadly blizzard. Vader was deadly enough to deal with the pirates, and his armor would protect him from the cold, but Tarkin had neither a weapon nor a winter coat. If they were separated-

A very violent motion interrupted his thoughts as the pod heavily landed, skidding at a breakneck speed through a field of jagged, snow-covered rocks and at last half-burying itself in the side of what appeared to be a massive snowbank.

There were a few final creaks and thuds, and then abruptly everything was still. The escape pod sat placidly, somehow intact and right-side up, surrounded by packed snow to one side and the stormy, flake-choked night on the other. Wind howled, faintly, outside. Vader breathed as usual. There was no other sound.

"Well," Tarkin said presently, "I suppose that was a landing."

"You said you would thank me."

Tarkin peered pensively out the window. "It remains to be seen if we're safe."

Vader went straight to the escape pod's exit hatch and started to paw at the controls. Tarkin straightened. "What are you doing?"

"The weapon is near here. I can feel it. I will find it, kill whoever is guarding it, and make something useful out of this failure of a mission."

"You want to walk out into a blizzard on an uninhabited world? Without cold-weather gear or any idea what we're looking for? Without setting up a proper distress signal first?"

"I do not need cold-weather gear," said Vader.

"What, so you're just going to leave _me-_" Tarkin looked irately at Vader and then paused, suddenly distracted. He hadn't looked closely at Vader since this emergency began. "Vader, you're hurt."

"I am not," said Vader, but he paused and looked down at himself. Vader's armor had sustained damage as they ran through the collapsing _Overseer._ His helmet was chipped, and there was a large crack in the side of his chestplate; some of the outer armor was gone, exposing more of the suit's fabric under-layer, and the fabric sagged oddly. There was a gash through which Tarkin could abruptly see death-pale, scarred skin, a few whole square inches of it, and something that looked suspiciously red.

"Vader," he said, fighting to keep his voice level, "you're _injured._"

Vader looked as though he hadn't even noticed the damage until now. He put his hands on himself, fussing with the torn fabric for a moment, and then peered down into his own indicator panel before straightening. "No essential systems are damaged. It does not matter."

"Vader. You are not _walking out into the snow_ with a broken suit and an untreated wound. I am not bringing you back to the Emperor with - with frostbite, or whatever other madness you're about to do to yourself. You're going to clean it and put a bandage on it, at least, and then we're going to follow the actual protocol for this situation, which is that we broadcast a clear distress signal over the usual channels and stay put so that help can arrive. We've broken protocol enough on this mission already, and I will not allow more. That is an order."

"You cannot order me. You decided I was in command."

"Then I hereby temporarily relieve you of command, by reason of injury, for your own safety. _And_ mine."

Vader looked down at himself, frustrated. After a tense moment, he heavily sat back down. "Find me a bandage."

Tarkin went to the small supply cabinet at the back of the pod and rummaged around. By Imperial protocol, eight adult humans ought to be able to survive in an escape pod for two to three days, and it looked like the Overseer's pods had been stocked to that standard, although Tarkin didn't want to imagine eight adult humans crammed into this space for that long. They'd fit, but only by sitting shoulder to shoulder on both benches, feet tangled together on the pod's small floor.

In any case, the cabinet held a removable transmitter for the distress beacon, ration bars, bottled water, eight thin black blankets, some hand sanitizer, and a first-aid kit. Tarkin pulled out the kit and proffered it, and Vader Force-pulled it the rest of the way over to himself, along with one of the water bottles. Tarkin looked on anxiously as Vader opened the kit, and then decided that Vader should have some privacy.

He turned and began to rummage further, instead. There wasn't much else in the cabinet. There was a vaguely serviceable chemical toilet and sonic scrubber, but no outdoor survival equipment, despite the high probability of landing in some patch of wilderness; no cold-weather gear, and no stash of useful weapons.

Tarkin had dealt with Imperial provisioning and logistics before. He knew that these pods were deliberately spartan, partly to cut costs and partly to discourage desertion. It was logical enough, bot naturally inconvenient at this juncture.

He set the beacon to transmit a standard distress call on the usual Imperial channel, and then checked the main information panel, which blinked with very rudimentary aurebesh letters, displaying statistics such as the time, remaining power, and external temperature. The time, still keyed to the Coruscanti clock they'd been using on the _Overseer,_ was earlier than he'd expected; he and Vader must have slept only an hour or two. If Vader had, in fact, slept at all.

The temperature, according to the readout, was only just below freezing, although that blizzard would add significant windchill. This must be Hethea 1, then, the innermost of the three ice moons, which had been experiencing a period of climactic change. Shifting glaciers, widening crevasses - which was another excellent reason, now that he thought of it, to stay with the pod - even occasional pools of liquid water. Perhaps the pirates' activities, unnoticed until now, had something to do with that.

He looked up at Vader, and caught the tail end of Vader clumsily applying a bandage through the hole in his suit. Vader finished what he was doing, then put the first aid kit down and looked back at him.

"What do you propose to do," said Vader, "until our rescuers arrive?" He said it with a peculiar sour amusement; the idea of having to be rescued, rather than effortlessly performing the rescue, must be strange to him.

"Well, we have at least a few hours," Tarkin said. "Most likely until morning, and perhaps as much as a day longer, if things don't go straightforwardly. But we'll be missed soon enough, and both Coruscant and Eriadu know the route we were taking. The best thing to do might be to get some sleep, although-"

"We are alone," Vader interrupted, even more amused now. If anything, the tone of his voice suggested a leer. "You finally have no work to distract you from me. And the first thing you can think to do is _sleep?_"

Tarkin sat down heavily on his bench. He was surprised how actively unsexual he felt. His ship, inadequate though it was, had just crumbled to pieces before his eyes. The idea of turning directly back to his self-indulgence with Vader seemed wrong somehow. He was also very tired. "It's been less than two hours, Vader. I'm not quite ready to go again."

Vader's sex drive never seemed to abate, despite the wretched state of Vader's body. Perhaps because his usual methods had little enough to do with his body. Perhaps it wasn't about sating a drive in the usual sense; perhaps it was more to do with keeping Tarkin next to him, paying attention, interacting.  Vader was hurt, and was dealing with the same shock as Tarkin. Despite all the progress he'd made on Scarif, asking directly for comfort might not ever occur to him. But if sex felt familiar and comforting...

Tarkin looked Vader up and down, weighing his options. Perhaps he could spend some time investigating Vader's emotions, as he'd done on Scarif. Or... or he could forget that and sleep. He very much wanted to sleep. The escape pod's low benches, with their vague attempt at padding, were not an ideal spot, but they'd be more comfortable than lying on top of an armored Vader. As long as the distress beacon held out, they could both drift off for a few more hours, and then...

"Sleep, then," Vader said, looking at him sidelong. "Regain your strength."

_Your,_ not _our. _ Belatedly, Tarkin realized the other problem with this plan.  "You can't sleep in here, can you? Not with your armor on."

"No. Not unless I was significantly more exhausted."

"Not even by using the Force?"

"No."

And... and Vader wouldn't be able to meet his other needs in here, either. Those ration bars wouldn't fit into the port where he loaded his nutrient packs. He could probably work out some awkward way of taking in water, but it wouldn't sustain him the same way his fluid packs did, with their carefully calibrated mix of minerals and electrolytes. And there was nothing at all here in the way of medicine.  Tarkin wasn't entirely sure of the full catalog of what Vader's medicines did, but he knew that there were a lot of them and that they were needed several times a day. Even simply waiting for rescue until midmorning might have unpleasant medical consequences for Vader. And if it dragged on longer...

No wonder he'd wanted to run out in the snow and try to solve this himself. It was a terrible idea, and it likely wouldn't get him back to his meds or his meditation chamber any faster, but it would be much more appealing to a mind like Vader's  than sitting and waiting for his body to destroy itself.

Tarkin rearranged himself on his bench, straightening his spine. "Well, I'm not about to nod off and leave you to brood by yourself. I don't need one night's sleep that badly. We can stay up talking and keep each other occupied."

In the Clone Wars, during the brief time that Tarkin had been a prisoner of war, he and his cellmates had slept, by unspoken agreement, in shifts. Each shift possessed at least two men awake, usually more. No one wanted to be sleeping and vulnerable if the interrogation droids or some other unpleasantness arrived. But no one wanted to do a waking shift by themselves, either, waiting out the interminable hours alone. It was one thing for a soldier to do that on guard duty, in a familiar location. It was quite another in the confines of a Separatist cell.

Vader's helmet tilted sardonically. "I am capable of waking you."

Tarkin winced slightly. He remembered that from Scarif. "Will you, though? I don't want you sitting here wounded and alone."

Or running off into the snow without him.

Vader shifted slightly. "And I do not want you forcing yourself into meaningless chatter, when I feel all too clearly in your mind that you would rather rest. When I want something, I will wake you. I will promise you that, if you like."

"All right," said Tarkin, making a feeble attempt not to show the relief he felt. Vader would notice anyway, of course. "But I'm holding you to that."

"As you wish."

"Are you going to be all right? Without your, ah..."

"I will endure. Go to sleep."

Tarkin kicked his boots back off and went to pull out a blanket from the supply cabinet. After a moment's consideration, he folded it and placed it on one end of the bench to support his head. He lay down on his side, facing away from Vader - not bothering to undress or to fuss about with blankets any further - and closed his eyes. He still heard the wind howling outside. This wasn't a particularly relaxing environment, and there wasn't quite enough room to stretch out, but Tarkin's body had gone through two separate adrenaline crashes in the space of a few hours and it would take what it could get. Vader quietly dimmed the pod's lights, and he remembered nothing further.

*

It had been a long time since Vader had watched anyone sleep, and he focused on Tarkin's narrow, unmoving form. In the meditation chamber, overwhelmed in ways he didn't want to admit, Vader had been content to just lie there with Tarkin on top of him. He hadn't quite managed to drift off to sleep, but he had meditated lightly and enjoyed the vulnerable strangeness of it. Tarkin lying limp and breathing shallowly, as if Vader were as comfortable and trustworthy as a... a pillow. It had taken a while for that metaphor to come to him; Vader hadn't done anything involving pillows in a long time.

Watching Tarkin sleep on a bench wasn't quite as good as that, but it would do. Sleeping minds weren't as bright or loud as conscious ones, but Vader could still feel them. If he focused, he could tell the difference between the curious inward aimlessness of pleasant dreams, the fearful churn of a nightmare, and the softer, darker quietness of dreamless sleep. It was that latter state that Tarkin had entered for now, and it was soothing to look at.

Vader's body was constantly in pain for a variety of reasons, and the shallow cut over his ribs didn't hurt enough to stand out against that background. He did feel cold, though. Vader's body didn't regulate its temperature very well, and normally his suit's inner layer kept him warm. Those materials were still trying their best, but in the spot where they'd broken open, he could feel the air on his skin. Dry, cold, biting and irritating.

After a few minutes, he got up, went to the corner of the pod, pulled out one of the remaining blankets, and clumsily wrapped it around himself. Tarkin was going to laugh at him for it, but it helped.

Vader was not very happy right now. The cold was the only ill effect he felt so far, but if he and Tarkin stayed stranded much longer, that would change. In a typical day, Vader took at least a dozen different medicines, more if something specific had flared up or bothered him. Going cold turkey off all of them at once would be... bad.  The painkillers would be the first to make their absence known, not only with waves of agony but with nausea, weakness, mental confusion. That could begin as early as midmorning. Some of his other medicines came with withdrawal syndromes of their own, albeit slower ones. If this lasted more than a day, Vader wasn't even sure what would happen, but he wasn't going to like it.

Strange, that Tarkin had noticed the problem, but had not been afraid. Vader had felt the moment when he worked it out, the rush of concern - for Vader's safety, not for Tarkin's own. Strange that he'd ordered them to stay here, when that meant trapping himself with an increasingly agitated Vader in a very small space.

Stranger still, that Vader had obeyed.

The weapon's presence itched at him. He didn't know its direction or distance, its size or its properties, or how and by whom it might be guarded. He just felt that something destructive lay not far from here, something old and of the Dark Side. It had something to do with the storm, but creating storms was not its full purpose. He did not, oddly, feel any pirates nearby; but Vader wasn't emotionally invested in these pirates, nor were they strong in the Force, so he might not feel their presence until they were practically within sight.

He still wanted to charge out and investigate. There was the hole in his armor, but Vader had his lightsaber and his wits about him. No hidden pirate base could withstand him if it stood in his way. With any luck, the pirates would have ships with them. He could kill them all and _take_ a ship, then bring himself and Tarkin and this mysterious weapon all the rest of the way to Eriadu, no rescue required.

But Tarkin had neither a weapon nor a way of dealing with the cold. Vader would have to leave him here against his will, trapped and defenseless, without any knowledge of when Vader would return for him, or whether the pirates would find him first. Something old and buried in Vader rebelled at that; he'd felt Tarkin's own reluctance to sit up alone in the dark. Vader did not want to abandon him like that, behind enemy lines.

He could still do it, in an emergency. If staying here, getting progressively sicker, became less tolerable than betraying Tarkin's wishes. He could jury-rig some kind of patch for his armor to keep out the cold, with a torn-off corner of his blanket and some of the sticky tape from the first aid kit, and the Force would guide him where he needed to be. But Tarkin wanted him here, and he would trust Tarkin's judgment for now.

Vader sat back on his bench, against the escape pod's inner wall, and meditated.

The cold wind became a rhythm of its own, a counterpoint to his breath. He let his mind expand to fill it; there was something he liked about this storm, something dark. It wasn't _deadlier_ than ordinary snow, not in any physical way, but it wanted to be. As if the weapon had raised it, in preparation for something more, and then been somehow cut off, leaving the storm to swirl uselessly in its wake. Vader drank in that impotent elemental hunger, let himself drift with it for a while.

_Who made you?_ Vader asked the storm, experimentally. In the deepest meditation, focused on the most powerfully dark of elemental forces, Vader sometimes thought he could hear them speaking back. But the snowstorm wasn't quite that dark or that old, and he wasn't surprised when it said nothing.

Something else seemed to call to him, beyond or below the storm. Something... waiting. But it would not quite resolve in his mind.

That was fine. He and whatever it was could wait together, in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: I have no idea how action scenes work or what the proper procedure is for evacuating a spaceship ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Note 2: Clearly, when Tarkin says he's letting Vader be in charge, it means fuckall.
> 
> Note 3: The continued unnecessary blanket jokes have nothing to do with the fact that I've been sick and want to be wrapped in blankets myself, nuh uh, no sir.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everybody has to sit in an escape pod and talk about their feelings; Vader gives a history lesson; and Tarkin discusses a sex scandal from his recent past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one happened super fast because (a) I'm sick and (b) it was sorta already half written before I posted chapter 4.
> 
> Friendly reminder that, back in "Sea Life of Scarif," I decided I was taking the general names/situations of Tarkin's relationships from Legends but changing their details around when I wanted to, so we're doing some more of that here. Hopefully this always goes without saying since it's villain fanfic but, uh, neither of these characters' opinions about gender / sex / other things necessarily reflect my own.

Tarkin slept fitfully. The escape pod's bench was not especially comfortable. Softer than sleeping on Vader, but he'd had Force assistance for that, and now all his joints were belatedly protesting. He had a serious crick in his neck and an angry knot between his shoulders, neither of which were helped any by the bench's barely adequate padding. There were other aches in various places, including a telltale series of finger-sized bruises, where Vader had gripped him, just above his hips. That one was distracting in a more pleasant way than the other aches, but still distracting. After the disaster of last night and the awkward, trapped circumstances of the present, it was difficult to stay relaxed.

Someday soon, perhaps in a few more years, Tarkin was going to have to admit he was too old for this. Too old for active duty, at least; he hoped he could stay on in governance a decade or two longer, rule from a bit more of a remove, the way Palpatine did. The Tarkin family was of very good genetic stock. Tarkin's ninety-two-year-old father back on Eriadu could still outmaneuver half the planet, so Tarkin was optimistic about his own chances.

He wanted to see Project Stardust come to fruition, at least, before any depressing words like "retirement" crossed his lips. From the latest reports, it looked as though that might actually happen within Krennic's projected year. The project had looked good like that before, of course, before stalling yet again and uselessly burning through another few years' funds, so Tarkin knew not to depend on current projections too closely.

Resigning himself to being awake for the moment, Tarkin pushed himself up and looked groggily around. It was still dark, and the transmitter was still sending out its distress call with no sign of a response. Vader sat very still, leaning slightly against the escape pod's wall, making his usual breath-sound. He had wrapped himself in one of the black blankets from the supply cabinet. Tarkin watched him quietly; perhaps Vader had managed to nod off after all. Tarkin didn't want to disturb him, if so. It couldn't be pleasant for him, this long dreary wait for rescue.

The Emperor wanted this weapon, and he had wanted it retrieved quietly. It seemed that the Emperor would not get his wish, and it surprised Tarkin that some small, petty part of him enjoyed that thought. A ruined plan for a ruined plan, tit for tat.

But it was not good when the Emperor was displeased.

"You are brooding," said Vader's deep voice suddenly, and Tarkin was startled to realize he wasn't asleep after all.

"Good morning to you too. I'm merely..." Tarkin sighed. "Considering how badly this mission has gone."

"Shall I attempt to distract you?"

For goodness' sake, Vader only ever thought of one thing. He had a point: this little interlude in the escape pod would go much more slowly if they spent it being miserable. But Tarkin wasn't in the mood for anything fun. He looked out the window at the dismal cold darkness of Hethea 1, and at the storm, which still hadn't abated.

"Vader," he said, "what does the Sith religion say about failure?"

Vader turned his head. "You are suddenly so curious about the Sith. You were not before."

"I had other things on my mind before."

He knew Vader wasn't fooled. Tarkin had been idly curious about Vader's religion before, but he'd mostly accepted it as something strange and gloomy and ineffable, which he wasn't Force-sensitive enough to understand. If he wanted to know more now, it wasn't mere curiosity. He wanted to know, because the Sith religion was what tied Vader to Palpatine.

"It does not matter," said Vader, "since we did not fail."

Tarkin raised an eyebrow. Vader had called it a failure himself, not long ago, but there was no rule saying Vader had to be consistent. "Our ship was destroyed with nearly all hands aboard, and now we're stranded in a snowstorm on an uninhabited moon."

"We are not defeated. We are biding our time until the moment comes again to act. That is not the fullest expression of the Dark Side, but it is no sin."

Tarkin nearly asked _and what about the crew?_, but he knew better. Neither Vader nor Palpatine cared much for the lives of the people who served them. Neither did Tarkin, most of the time. He was simply having a middle-of-the-night bad mood.

But he _had_ wanted to know more about the Sith. He'd resolved that last night. Vader's situation with Palpatine bothered him, and he needed to learn more about the problem. Preferably from an indirect, unthreatening route.

If he couldn't do anything to fix the mission, he could at least work on _this._

"Tell me more," he said. "About the Sith generally. I feel I've picked things up offhand, over the years, but we've never really sat down and talked about it."

There was amusement in Vader's tone. "And you have no ulterior motive for asking."

"Humor me. It's a dark and stormy night, and we need to keep our minds occupied. Besides, it's a part of you. Tell me about the Dark Side."

Vader settled back against the wall, pulling his blanket tighter around himself as the wind wailed. Neither of them had bothered to turn the pod's interior lights back on, and the space around them was dim, lit mostly by the panel at one end and by a strip of emergency lights on the floor. Vader looked good in that lighting: a grander, deeper shadow emerging from the general gloom.

"The Force is an energy that permeates all things," Vader said. "Without it, nothing would live or feel or have form. Those of us whom you call _sensitive_ can attend to it, and even learn to manipulate it to our own ends. But there are... differing methods."

Tarkin nodded. "I'm with you so far."

"The Jedi Order had one way of looking at the Force. They were aware, at their founding, that they had power the rest of the galaxy lacked, and they believed they had a duty to constrain its use. They could only allow that power to be used in certain ways. Not only in pursuit of a good end, but impartially and selflessly, with a level of mental purity that is impossible for most beings, unless they are trained to it nearly from birth. Yet the portions of the Force that can be accessed in this sterile state are only a fraction of its strength. These portions, the Jedi called the Light Side. Everything else, particularly anything selfish or unpleasant, they called the Dark. The Jedi forbade the Dark Side, and in doing so, they crippled themselves."

"Yes, I remember the Jedi." Tarkin had worked alongside the Jedi in the Clone Wars, and he'd found them irritating for more or less the reasons Vader described. They constantly held themselves back, blathering about compassion and restraint, when there was an actual _war_ on which required decisive action. The war had dragged on years longer than it needed to because of their dithering.

"I am not speaking of the Jedi Order you remember. This choice was made many thousands of years ago."

"All right."

"The Sith began as an offshoot of the Jedi. A group of adepts who wished to make use of the Force more fully, to know it even in its unpleasant aspects. For that heresy, the Jedi tried to exterminate them." Vader shifted slightly, poking a gloved hand out from under his blanket to gesture. "But the Dark is more powerful than the Light. The Dark Side thrives in the selfish individual, and there is nothing more elementally selfish than survival. It should not have surprised the Jedi that the Sith survived, even thrived, in numbers they could not contain."

Tarkin cast his mind back to his schooling, trying to remember what he knew of that period of history. It wasn't much. He'd studied history, but mostly the history of his own world and its surrounding sector, and the political history of the Republic. Not the mythic struggles of thousands of years ago. "Wasn't there a Sith Empire at some point?"

"Yes. Thousands of Sith Lords, just as there were thousands of Jedi in your youth. And millions upon millions of their subjects and slaves. The greatest depths of cruelty and ambition were explored in those days, and countless dark secrets uncovered which are lost to us now. Their temples were engines of destruction far more elegant and sacred than your Death Star. And the strongest of them - those with not only the power in the Force, but the will to _use_ it, no matter the cost - these ruled openly and fully, defying the Light which still sought to stamp them out."

Tarkin frowned slightly. He'd been with Vader completely on the earlier parts of the story, the parts about survival and full use of one's abilities. But he had more trouble with this part. An entire empire of thousands of over-the-top Sith Lords - as opposed to the current one, which merely happened to have a couple of Sith Lords in charge - felt _excessive_, in the same way as Vader's lava fortress. Focusing on the darkness itself, trying too hard to exaggerate its proportions, instead of using it rationally for a purpose.

Tarkin was neither Force-sensitive nor spiritual, but he had his own darkness; he'd been aware of it all his life. He'd devoted himself to finding situations where it had some use. To worship the darkness for its own sake, to try to _increase_ it, felt like... cheating.

"You doubt me," said Vader in the darkness.

"I'm certain what you're telling me is true," said Tarkin, waving a hand. "I'm simply having trouble relating. Continue, though. If the Sith Empire was so much more powerful than the Light Side, what happened to it?"

"The old Sith Lords turned on each other," said Vader, "each one wanting to rule for themselves. The Jedi Order took advantage of that discord. They struck when the Empire's rulers were fixed on each other, and not on the outside threat, and thus the Sith Empire was destroyed."

Tarkin nodded, privately thinking that this proved at least some of his point. Too much darkness and selfishness for its own sake; not enough long-term planning.

Though - Palpatine _did_ think long-term, obviously. It was Vader who lacked that ability. Had the Sith improved since those ancient days? Was Palpatine an anomaly? Or perhaps it had always been a mix, even in the days of the Sith Empire, subtle minds like Palpatine's and unsubtle ones like Vader's, and the clear thinkers among them simply hadn't managed to turn the tide.

Come to think of it, what would that look like? Dozens of minds as complex as Palpatine's, all pitted against each other? Tarkin could scarcely imagine it.

"Only a single Lord of the Sith survived that war," said Vader. "A man who took the name of Darth Bane. In the aftermath of defeat, he looked deeper into the darkness than any before him. His rage at watching his empire and his culture forever destroyed. His hate for the Jedi and the more short-sighted Sith who had invited in that final defeat. And out of those ashes, he created the Sith Order as it currently exists. He created the Rule of Two. There would never again be thousands of Sith, distracted by thousands of rivalries. Only one master, to carry the darkness. And one apprentice, to be shaped and prepared, to whom the darkness can be fruitfully passed on."

"And you're the apprentice."

"Yes."

"But there are more than two of you, even now. You have the Inquisitorius-"

"They are not Sith," Vader said sharply.

Tarkin's lip curled slightly. The Sith were like all other religious people, then. Setting high-minded strictures for themselves, and then immediately trying to weasel their way back out from under them.

"So," he said, "when you say _shaped and prepared._ He's - training you to be the next Emperor?"

This was a matter of some covert discussion among Imperial High Command. Palpatine had refused, despite increasingly pointed requests as he aged, to ever name an official heir. He was cryptic as to his reasons, but it seemed he wanted everyone to fight it out for themselves. That would be consistent with Palpatine's worldview, in which power belonged only to those who could take it and hold it. Tarkin didn't disagree with that view, he just wanted the taking to proceed in a more orderly manner. A violent succession crisis wasn't going to help the galaxy.

Based on their strange relationship, though, it was commonly held that Vader was second in line to the throne. Vader himself had made remarks that suggested this. Certainly, if Vader did try to take power after Palpatine's death, it would be foolish for anyone to contest him. But Vader lacked interest in politics. So the real future of the Empire, in that scenario, would be determined by whom Vader trusted to advise him.

Plenty of factions, actively or passively, had made plans to earn that trust. Vader's general misanthropy made it difficult, of course; he didn't exactly have friends. If something were to happen to Palpatine tomorrow, it was very likely that the only person who truly had Vader's ear, and therefore the de facto center of political power in the galaxy, would be Tarkin. This was a fact he'd been trying not to think about too hard.

"He is training me to be the next master," Vader corrected. "I would be Emperor as well, if he fell, but that is of lesser importance. And neither role matters, since he will not die."

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. He wasn't even sure where to start with that chain of statements.

"He's... very old," he ventured.

"You know nothing."

Tarkin rearranged himself on his bench, trying to get comfortable. His bruises twinged, as he sat back against the wall, and his upper back and neck complained. "So he's training you to replace him, but he doesn't believe he'll ever need to be replaced?"

"Yes."

"You don't... see the contradiction in that."

"It is traditional."

Tarkin closed his eyes in frustration. He felt like he'd almost gotten somewhere. He'd convinced Vader to tell him something revealing, but now he didn't know what to do with it.

"What sort of training do you do?" he tried. "Besides your combat training. Are there... books? Or is it more of an experiential thing?"

"You cannot understand."

Experiential, then, and dependent on the Force in some way. Mystical knowledge passed down through meditation and visions, maybe. Tarkin tried turning to the side and putting his feet up; perhaps that would be more comfortable. It wasn't.

"Here's what I really haven't been able to work out," he said. "Does using the Dark Side require you to be unhappy? Is that part of it?"

Vader paused a long time - long enough for Tarkin to grow frustrated with his stillness, to wonder if he'd fallen asleep or been offended into silence - before he said, "Yes."

"Why?"

"That is its nature."

"I don't see why it would be. You said that the Jedi defined the Light Side as a state of selfless impartiality, and the Dark Side is everything else. Certainly that would include unhappiness, but what about - other things? Selfish pleasures? Ordinary joys. Like on Scarif."

"They are not forbidden. But they are a distraction from true strength. A Sith Lord must choose power above all other things. Joy and pleasure can only go a little ways down that path before they shrink from its costs. Anger, hate, and pain are stronger."

Tarkin frowned. "So, when the Emperor says he doesn't want you becoming too distracted from your path-"

"Yes?"

He had hesitated, self-conscious. It sounded like a line from a bad holovid. "He means he doesn't want you to be happy."

Vader turned his head critically. "There are several hours left before dawn. You would be more comfortable there if you had a blanket."

"How does that even-" Tarkin gestured to the wadded-up one he'd been using as a pillow, frustrated by the non-sequitur. "I _have_ one, look."

"There are six more in the supply cabinet. If you wish to be credible on the topic of happiness, indulge yourself. And remove your uniform."

Tarkin sighed shortly, and then got up. "Fine. But this discussion isn't over."

"I did not expect it to be."

He didn't even have time to walk the two steps to the cabinet before Vader neatly plucked three blankets into the air and spread them out over top of the bench, like a makeshift mattress, augmenting the cheap thin padding that was already there. A fourth moved to hover over top of the pile, with its corner raised enticingly.

It embarrassed Tarkin, being coddled in this way. He was sixty-three years old and administrated the entire Outer Rim. He didn't need to be tucked in.

But he took off his uniform and obligingly crawled in, because he was, in fact, very tired and wanted to lie down. It did feel better, lying here with the blankets on his skin. His spine and his joints were still variously angry with him, and everything about this entire night was frustrating, but the makeshift mattress was a little bit easier to relax into, to let some of it go.

He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and thought about being a Sith Lord. It didn't sound like a particularly good bargain. Surrender all personal autonomy to a dubiously trustworthy master, actively choose to be miserable forever, all for the sake of carrying on the traditions of a culture that had failed the test of its own survival. And for power, of course, but Vader had been powerful as a Jedi, too. Was the difference really so large? Why not strike out on his own, instead, using all of the parts of the Force as he saw fit? If the greatest heights of power came from negative emotions, why not save those heights for when he truly needed them, and spend the rest of his time reasonably content?

There had been unhappiness in him even as a Jedi, of course. An anger that simmered all too plainly beneath the easy bravado. But Vader had smiled easily, too, back in those days. He'd had friends. He'd been able to relax and enjoy himself sometimes. And he'd already been stronger than half the rest of his Order put together.

It didn't make sense, except in the one, awful, obvious way that it did. It made sense, because it was exactly the sort of arrangement that Palpatine would enjoy.

*

Vader meditated a while longer as Tarkin drifted back off to sleep. Before, he had let the feel of the storm distract him, but he was uneasy now. It was more difficult now to let go, and to focus on his senses, in preference to his thinking mind's concerns.

He had answered Tarkin's questions honestly until his patience ran out, and then instead of defensively lashing out, he'd deflected them with something nice. He thought he'd done well, transparent as the tactic might have been. The questions themselves weren't anything too secret for Tarkin to know, even if he wasn't truly capable of understanding their answers.

But he didn't like what Tarkin was doing. Tarkin wasn't challenging Palpatine as directly as before, but he was still trying to worm his way in, to understand, to find some loophole through which he could improve things. He would never understand, and nothing would improve, and if he kept trying, then the Emperor would break him.

If Vader had a mind more like Palpatine's or Tarkin's, he might have been able to handle this. He could imagine distracting Tarkin away from his concerns more subtly, or making something up that sounded nice enough to assuage him, or convincing him to mind his own damn business. But Vader didn't know how to do those things, and he didn't like the idea of trying. He wasn't sure why not.

He shifted on his bench, trying to get comfortable. Hunger and withdrawal hadn't arrived yet, but Vader was sleepy and his suit would not let him sleep, which was a small torment of its own. His body ached, the limbs and joints making their various complaints. Vader was used to the weight of his suit, but it _was_ heavy, and taking off the heaviest pieces in his meditation chamber each night was a necessary relief. When he wasn't able to do that, he not only lost sleep, but gained more pain, as his muscles tensed and cramped in a fruitless attempt to shift all that deep heavy pressure away. That same tension, joined with his mental unease, was beginning to make further meditation impossible.

Tarkin was having an easier time of it, now that Vader had made him comfortable. Vader didn't begrudge that. If he had to sit here, not-sleeping, it was better to feel a peaceful resting mind nearby, instead of a second mind, in synchrony with his, that also craved the sleep it couldn't have.

Vader was getting restless though. He kicked his feet against the floor a bit. Tarkin stirred, but didn't wake.

He made himself sit and try to meditate a bit longer. Tarkin had extracted a promise that Vader would wake him as soon as he wanted something, but Vader wasn't sure what he wanted, apart from proper rest and his medicine. He'd suggested sex, but Tarkin had been too tired, and bothering him about it again wouldn't change that fact.

Vader knew it wasn't only exhaustion: that was real, but there was something else underneath, a kind of revulsion that Tarkin possessed only in his foulest moods. He wasn't disgusted by Vader, but he found the situation distasteful enough that adding sex to it would only make things worse. Tarkin's mind had felt like that to Vader once before, on their first visit to Mustafar, when Vader had told him that a romantic relationship was impossible and then left him to stew about it alone the whole morning. Tarkin had offered sex anyway, when Vader reappeared, but it had felt like an offer of rotten food.

Vader hadn't broken Tarkin's heart this time, though. Or - he was pretty sure he hadn't. They'd been talking about him and Palpatine, but he didn't think it was that. The revolted feeling had come out most strongly when they were talking about the mission. When Tarkin had called it a failure. When he resolved that they'd broken protocol too much already.

Tarkin felt bad about the _Overseer._ He felt guilty for their encounter in the meditation chamber, for letting himself be led past what he believed were the usual limits, maybe for being distracted by pleasure on a mission at all. And, through some sort of magical thinking, he'd connected the two. He thought Commander Martagon and her crew might still be alive, if he and Vader hadn't - how had he put it? - run off to fuck.

Vader had seen enough space combat to know Tarkin was wrong. The _Overseer_ had dropped out of hyperspace into a level of enemy fire that simply wasn't survivable. Vader had survived it, because, well, the rules never really applied to Vader. And he'd managed to drag Tarkin with him. But even Vader couldn't have taken out a whole pirate fleet from the bridge of a puny corvette. He could have taken out all the fleet's smaller craft, if he had his TIE fighter; maybe even done significant damage to a flagship, but not before the corvette itself was torn to pieces in the crossfire.

He'd also seen enough space combat to know that saying all this to Tarkin, straight out, wouldn't help. Tarkin had seen a lot of combat too, and he could run the odds himself if he wanted to. His real difficulty was emotional in nature, and he'd deal with it or he wouldn't.

But that left Vader in an awkward spot. He wanted attention, and even though Tarkin was right _here,_ it didn't feel like attention was really on offer.

_Tarkin will slip out of your hands soon enough._ Even Tarkin hadn't really denied that. He'd just pointed out a wider range of ways it could happen. It felt like Tarkin was always slipping away from him. Giving himself to Vader for a while, but then getting distracted or guilty, worrying over protocol, burying himself in the kind of work Vader couldn't keep up with. Coming up with reasons why they should slow down, when all Vader ever wanted was the reverse. Deciding that the time they had, for whatever abstruse reason, wasn't really their time.

He'd warned Vader he was going to be like that. He'd told Vader it was the reason why his marriage fell apart. _I'm not incapable of love,_ he'd said, and that was... true. Vader could sense people's feelings; there was no point in denying Tarkin loved him. But Tarkin could love people, apparently, and still decide he loved Imperial protocol more.

Vader tapped his foot against Tarkin's bench, a little harder this time.

"Mmph?" said Tarkin, rolling over and vaguely blinking his eyes.

"You said to wake you if I wanted something."

Tarkin clumsily rubbed his eyes. "I did, didn't I. I said I'd hold you to it."

"I want you to - tell me about something."

Tarkin had been talking to him about religion before, so he clearly wasn't opposed to talking, even about difficult things. Vader could enjoy Tarkin's company that way, at least. He might even manage to assuage a few of his fears.

"Yes?"

"Tell me about someone you loved."

Tarkin made his clumsy, gradual way to a seated position, pushing his blanket away. "Why would... what about them, Vader?"

"You told me about your wife before. You said you did not love her, and she left because you paid no attention to her. But you also said you are not incapable of love."

Tarkin looked as though this was a bit too much for his still-half-asleep brain. "I... That's not exactly what I said. It wasn't _no_ attention. And - I didn't marry her for love, but these things are complex. It wasn't a total absence of affection, so much as a-"

"Be that as it may," Vader interrupted. "Tell me about someone you did love, wholly. Tell me how _that_ ended."

Tarkin let out a short breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you ever just - wake people up gradually?"

"I followed your instructions. Now answer me."

"Well," Tarkin said, letting go of his face and sitting back a bit in the gloom. It might have been Vader's imagination before, but he thought the sky might be lightening slightly, a dark iron-gray in place of the inky black of midnight. "You heard about Admiral Daala already, of course, so there's no use going through that one. Beyond that-"

"I did not hear."

"Of course you did, everyone heard about that one, it was an entire _scandal_. But if you want to hear about a more normal relationship-"

"I want to hear," said Vader implacably, "about the one who came to your mind first. Normal or not. You have never mentioned an Admiral Daala. Who is he?"

"She," Tarkin corrected, and then he paused as something about Vader's comment seemed to sink in. "I... You really don't know. How is that possible? What do you _do_ all day in that fortress, Vader? Do you just meditate so hard that everyone else-"

"I never attend to the political scandals of the day. I have neither time nor patience for Imperial gossip."

"Yes, so little patience that you woke me up out of a dead sleep for it." He looked over at the supply cabinet, visibly regretting that there wasn't any tea. "Let me get some water, at least."

Vader let him. It took only a few seconds for Tarkin to push himself up from his bench in the dimness, stagger two steps to the cabinet, and take out one of the bottles of water. He sat back down and busied himself opening its mildly complicated lid, taking a long careful sip, steadying himself. It seemed to be only fractionally as effective as tea, but it at least worked in a similar direction.

"Well," he managed, speaking over the distant continued howl of the wind. "I'll start at the beginning, I suppose. This was some number of years ago. I was still married at the time, though we'd already dropped the pretense of monogamy, and I'd only recently had the promotion to Grand Moff. I was investigating something that interested me for a frivolous reason, and I came across a certain woman who had enlisted in the Imperial Navy. Just a girl, really, fresh out of the Academy and on kitchen duty." His eyes flicked up to meet Vader's, as if anticipating some objection. "You understand, that's not what I was expecting to find. I don't go looking for girls that age. Based on her performance in the battle sims, I'd expected - something else, someone already lauded as a military genius, going incognito so as to safely try new tactics. But it was just her. She'd graduated at the top of her class, and then immediately been shunted into the most rudimentary, stupid work, because nobody wanted a woman in command."

"I have never understood why the Empire has that problem," Vader interrupted. He was enjoying this story so far. It seemed like it was winding up to be a long one, and a long story would help pass the time, distract him from his aches. "There were many women generals among the Jedi."

"Yes, and then they all betrayed the Emperor and died. _I_ understand what you're saying, but the Jedi are hardly the example to use if you want to change Imperial policy. Besides, if we did use the Jedi as a template, we'd have to accept aliens in command, and then where would we be?"

"Do you regret accepting Grand Admiral Thrawn, then?"

"Don't get sidetracked. He's an exception. And there are still concerns as to his long-term loyalties, but never mind." Tarkin took another long sip of his water. "This girl, though. You should have _seen_ her battle sims. And her written analyses, too. She took the Tarkin Doctrine in directions even I'd never dreamed of. I wanted that kind of brilliance and ferocity leading our warships into battle, not - not inventorying datapads and rehydrating food. It was a waste. So I had her transferred to me and took her career into my own hands. Inconveniently, we also fell in love."

Vader watched Tarkin's mind, amused and perversely comforted. On Scarif, when Tarkin had talked about his family, there'd been emotion in his mind: a certain thwarted attachment, nostalgia, frustration. But it had all been somewhat buried, suppressed by his usual concern for practicalities, and by the careful way he monitored Vader. Here the attachment burned stronger and closer to the surface. It was good, knowing Tarkin had a habit of feeling this way about people.

It sounded - bizarrely - as if Tarkin was trying to say that he'd taken an apprentice. That wasn't the Imperial military's usual way, but it was familiar enough. Jedi never slept with their apprentices, of course, and Sith usually didn't. But Tarkin didn't have to follow either of those rules.

"Her name was Daala, then," he prompted, as Tarkin lapsed into a brief silence.

"Natasi Daala, yes."

"And it was a scandal."

"Well, not immediately. I was rather foolish about it, in retrospect." Tarkin took another short sip of his water. "It was a secret relationship, and that made the logistics more challenging than they needed to be, but it's not as though I'm not used to dealing with difficult logistics. I thought we could get away with it, and we did, for a while. For quite a few years."

Vader nodded; he understood what secret relationships were like, the constant fear and thrill of it. If anyone could deal with that roller coaster calmly, it was probably Tarkin.

Tarkin stared off into the distance pensively. "She was every bit as clever in real combat as in the sims. And as dangerous. And what she didn't know, she picked up rapidly. I'd never had such a quick or an eager student. It was... heady, being admired that way, by someone so interesting in their own right. Someone with such potential. In any case, she did well, and she steadily rose in the ranks."

Vader tilted his head, amused, putting the half-spoken pieces together. No wonder there had been a scandal. "Because you were the one who promoted her. I _see._"

"Do _not_ start, Vader. I've heard it all, believe me."

"To the rank of Admiral. Thinking no one would notice."

"Vader," Tarkin said warningly.

Vader liked this story so far, not because he _approved_ necessarily, but because it was... funny. He could picture it, and the mental image was ridiculous, but it fit. Tarkin liked so much to pretend he was the sensible one. Vader had felt guilty, sometimes, cajoling him past those limits; he'd wondered if his excesses would someday drive Tarkin away. But Tarkin could be as extravagant as Vader, in his own strange, strict, strategic ways. Vader knew that, too, deep down, and it was nice to see an illustration of the point.

It also stirred something strange in him, the way Tarkin praised this Natasi person's cleverness and courage. Her potential. Vader could feel the sincerity of those words. His own master never talked about him that way anymore. Vader didn't want Palpatine to be attracted to him the way Tarkin was; that idea revolted him. But - the rest of it. The way it made him so genuinely happy, recognizing who she was, what she could do.

Palpatine had used to tell Vader things like that, before his accident. How strong he was, how special, how full of possibility. If he'd kept that up over the years, if he'd truly been pleased with all the things Vader did for him, then-

Well. Vader might have hated that version of Palpatine slightly less.

Tarkin glared at him a moment longer, then sighed and sat back. "You're right, though. The whole thing was a mistake, really. I should have mentored her or slept with her, one or the other, not both. I could have-" He waved a hand, frustrated. "I could have assigned her to some other commander who didn't have such a conflict of interest. But I simply had such a strong idea of how I wanted it to go, of what I wanted for her."

The wind blew, pushing a small bank of snow halfway up against one of the windows with a soft crunch, as Tarkin lapsed back into silence.

"And then there was a scandal," Vader prompted.

"Yes, well, Natasi was very cooperative when it came to secrecy, but as much as we tried to avoid it, eventually word did get out. Patterns emerge; people figure these things out in time. In retrospect, I think there were people who knew very early, but who simply didn't wish to make waves." He flashed a pointed, sad, sardonic grin. "I'm told I can be intimidating. Did you know she was the first woman in the Imperial Navy to ever be an admiral?"

"I cannot imagine why."

The smile vanished from Tarkin's face. "Neither could Imperial High Command. I pointed to her stellar record of service, easily as distinguished as that of many men who'd made admiral, but apparently the Empire's first female admiralcy was a bridge too far. The next thing I knew, someone had made an anonymous complaint to the Senate, and there was suddenly a formal, public inquiry. Into my - corruption, or abuse of power, or whatever else such nonsense."

Vader was even more amused than before. He imagined an exasperated Tarkin staring down the entire Senate chamber at once. "What did you do?"

"I took a long look at myself and at the situation, and I realized exactly how it would go. _I_ was a Grand Moff and functionally untouchable. Even if they charged me with some awful crime, I had the Emperor's support. The most they could do would be to set me back a year or two. But Natasi was not so fortunate. All her rank and authority came from me, and if that was called into question, her career would be over immediately. Everything we'd worked for, all those years, in pieces. So I made a decision and transferred her again, to a top-secret research installation under the exclusive purview of the Tarkin Initiative. So classified that none of the Senators involved were cleared even to know it existed. They couldn't touch her there. Even if she was stripped of her rank in the eyes of the rest of the military, she'd still have that authority where she was."

Vader looked down, digesting that. He knew, without having to be told, that this transfer had also meant ending their relationship. Maybe not officially or completely, but in terms of Tarkin being able to visit her at any reasonable interval, even by his own standards. That was clear enough from the feelings that boiled just underneath his clipped words. Determination and loss.

He feared Tarkin leaving him, and he'd assumed that if that happened, it would be because Tarkin had lost interest. Because Vader had stopped being interesting, or because he'd pushed too far and made Tarkin too unhappy. It had never occurred to him that it might happen this other way. That Tarkin might feel he had to leave someone, out of his usual ruthless practicality, but keep on loving them anyway. Speaking of them, the way he'd spoken of Natasi a moment ago, with that frank admiration, even after it was over.

Vader still didn't like that, but it was... less bad. A little.

"How did she feel about it?" he asked. Hoping that Tarkin had, at least, asked that question. "Being sent abruptly far away, without you?"

"Oh, she hated it entirely. We had quite an argument. She wanted to stand with me and face down the inquiry together; she didn't believe we'd done anything wrong. But that's - well, it's not how it works. This way, Natasi still has real power in the world. A small fleet of Star Destroyers, smaller than she deserves, but also command of what might become some of the greatest defense projects in the Empire's future. The next steps after Project Stardust. It is a very important posting, despite its secrecy. She's doing well with it." Tarkin set his jaw. "Some difficulty in adjusting is to be expected. But if she still wants _me_ more than she wants all of that, then she's not who I trained her to be."

Vader listened to his breath, for a long moment, considering that. Considering Tarkin, and all his extravagances, and all the careful ways he rationalized them.

"You understand, then," he said at last. "The Sith principle. That power is more important than happiness."

Tarkin gave him a long, careful look back. "At times, and in certain ways, when circumstances prevent them from coexisting. But there's more than one way to be happy. Everything does have its place."

"Do you regret it?" Vader asked.

Tarkin sighed shortly. "In a way. She was worthy of her rank, and worthy of love. But the way I handled it, thinking I could have everything and go unchallenged about it forever, yes, that was a mistake. Given the enormity of the difference in power and age, perhaps it was a mistake for me to have feelings for her at all." He made a face. "That was certainly what the inquiry concluded."

Vader smiled slightly to himself, at the notion that feelings could ever be avoided when they wanted to be felt.

He closed his eyes. It really was growing lighter out, an undifferentiated snowy medium-gray now. His eyes wanted to be allowed to droop shut, even though he knew it wouldn't get him anywhere.

"Do you wish to sleep again?" he asked.

He heard Tarkin settling back experimentally, laying himself gingerly back down. "I don't know. You may have woken me up permanently for the morning, but we'll see. In the best case scenario, someone might respond to our distress call in another hour or two."

And in the worst case, much longer. They'd both made that calculation already.

Vader was glad they'd had this talk, though. It had successfully distracted him from his sense of impending medical doom. It appeared to have been a good distraction for Tarkin, too. If Tarkin turned out not to want to sleep anymore, then Vader would try to keep that going. Maybe eventually, he'd be able to cheer Tarkin up sufficiently to do something fun. That had worked on Mustafar, although there'd been more to work with in that instance. A workshop full of Vader's interesting projects, and a hanger full of airspeeders. If he had to use only conversation, it would take longer, but he could still do it, maybe. It wasn't like they didn't have time to kill.

Vader sleepily opened his eyes again, and regarded Tarkin, lying on his back in his nest of black blankets. His eyes were closed, and he seemed pensive, but relaxed. Vader hesitated, wondering if he should say this one last, uncheery thing.

"Do not try to fight the Emperor for me," he said presently, in a low voice. "That, too, would be a mistake."

He could feel that Tarkin heard him, but Tarkin didn't answer. Only turned onto his side, half-asleep already, and pulled the covers up over his face to block the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uh, didn't know Natasi Daala existed until I was partway through SLoS, and now I have 100 headcanons about her and am too chicken to do anything about them. I seriously considered writing a fic where she shows up and interacts uneasily with Vader and there is ridiculous villain poly drama, but I chickened out of that, too. Why do I love problematic things so much, we'll never know, sorry.
> 
> Stay tuned next chapter for Even More Sitting Around In An Escape Pod, but also more sexual tension and some unexpected/dramatic events. I hope. :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which breakfast is reluctantly eaten; risks are discussed, but not productively; Tarkin's kinks are used against him; Vader uses his lightsaber as fabric scissors; and the escape pod's structural integrity fails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it never fails, all of these fics have that chapter somewhere in the middle where there's a storm outside and the outline says they hunker down and have a relatively peaceful discussion but instead, FITE
> 
> like, I honestly shouldn't be surprised by it anymore. at least the fite is a little smaller in this one than the other two.
> 
> also I messed with the tags just a bit. the old version was not sufficiently on fleek. might mess with them more later.

Tarkin tried to doze a little more, but his body was, as he'd predicted, awake for the day. He rolled over and blinked up through the escape pod's windows in annoyance. The sky had become an undifferentiated gray-white, swirling with blown snow. At least, on Vader's side of the pod it was. The windows on Tarkin's side only showed the flat white crunch of the snowbank they'd landed in. The audible sounds were the same as they'd been overnight, just the whine of wind and the hiss of breath.

It had been good at first to distract himself with conversation, to think about other things that interested him instead of the trapped misery of the present. But the shock and exhaustion had worn off a bit and Tarkin was increasingly aware of the restless desire to _do_ something.

There wasn't much to do in here, until someone replied to the distress call. The Empire would have noticed his and Vader's absence by now, but they might not be able to reply until they had narrowed down the location and dealt with the pirates. It might take time. It was possible that more pirates or some other threat might reach the pod before that occurred, but if so, Vader could handle it.

Tarkin wished he could say the same about himself. He was unarmed, unable to leave the escape pod, and had no one to command. In a violent confrontation, he would have very little to contribute. There were ways he could have survived, of course, if he were truly on his own; ways of navigating danger with only one's wits and hands and words. But unless Vader abandoned him, or ran into some delicate political standoff, Tarkin's best tactic would be sticking close to his Sith Lord and doing as he was told. He didn't like it, but it was an obvious truth.

"What do you think the pirates are doing?" he asked in the quiet.

"Piracy."

"I mean in terms of strategies." Tarkin stared out the window. "The numbers of them amassed here suggest a large operation, larger than would be necessary for retrieving a single weapon. That in turn suggests they're making some longer-term plan for the area, and I will not have it."

"When we are let out of this pod," said Vader, "we will kill them, and then it will not matter."

"But if this is one of the known syndicates, then even a sizable presence here is only a branch of a larger operation. Why commit to a branch here? Why Hethea? It's not known for its resources, nor its hospitability."

Vader turned his head. "That is a Rebel tactic, is it not? Creating a base on some uncharted or useless little world, in hopes that they will not be found."

"Yes," said Tarkin. The major crime syndicates didn't typically operate that way. Crime was only profitable near large groups of people, just as hunting was only profitable near a reliable source of prey. But it was not unknown for the very peak of the organization to hide out, Rebel-like, in an out-of-the-way place. Sending the rank and file out to do the dirty work in better-traveled locations, while they collected their profits in peace. As the Pykes had, on Mustafar, before Vader moved in.

Could an entire operation of that nature be setting up _here?_ In Tarkin's very backyard? It was a bold move, if so, and he hated it.

Or perhaps these _were_ Rebels. They didn't look like the Rebels that Tarkin was familiar with, but it wouldn't be the first time that a new Rebel cell popped out of nowhere, using different ships and tactics from all the others.

If only they'd stopped to parlay and announced who they were. That would have solved any number of problems.

"Could you feel anything?" Tarkin asked. "About who they were, or what their intentions might be, other than destroying our ship?"

"No. I felt the panic of the crew and the presence of enemies. Nothing you could not have inferred from what you sensed on your own."

Tarkin looked at Vader sidelong. "Is it ever bothersome to you, what you're able to feel?"

Tarkin had been able to switch off his comm link when he could do nothing further for the bridge crew. He hadn't had to listen to their dying agonies. But Vader's senses didn't have an off switch.

"It does not matter," said Vader, looking down.

Tarkin sighed shortly. He could read that body language as well as anyone, but badgering Vader about it would not help. "You didn't see them using that Sith weapon, did you? All I saw were the usual turbolasers."

"The weapon is not up there with them," said Vader. "It is down here. It made the storm."

Tarkin looked up at the blowing snow outside. "Should we be worried?"

"No."

That would explain why there was such a large storm on an ice moon not known for severe weather. And why the storm had been so slow to abate. There was quite a lot else that it did not explain. "Why would the pirates want to create a seemingly ordinary storm on an uninhabited planet? How does that benefit them? Are they trying to shift the territory around, to cover or uncover something? Or are they simply testing it where it won't be noticed?"

"I do not know their intentions," said Vader. "I cannot sense them, only the weapon itself, and that, only barely. But the storm was not the weapon's fullest use. It was meant as a precursor to some other effect, which failed."

"Hm." Tarkin wished they had an engineer with them. Or - no, not with them in the pod, that would make the close quarters even more awkward and Vader much surlier. An engineer within easy radio distance, who could speculate usefully about what might be going on. Could the weapon be malfunctioning slightly? Did the pirates, not being Sith, fail to understand its use? Or were they simply not at that phase of testing yet? "What sort of weapon is it? Can you sense that? Is it portable?"

"I do not know."

"Well, when help comes, we'll investigate. Once you have your medicines, of course."

Vader gave him a strange, condescending look. As if Tarkin had said something unaccountably stupid. He turned and levitated another blanket towards him, folding it this way and that. He brought the first aid kit closer, too.

"What are you doing?" Tarkin asked.

"Tinkering," said Vader. "I believe I can patch my suit back together."

"That's a good idea," said Tarkin. He didn't want Vader leaving the pod yet, but when help arrived they would both have to, if only for a few seconds to walk to the rescuing craft. He'd noticed how Vader needed heat in his meditation chambers, and how he'd pulled one of the pod's thin blankets around himself for warmth. A patch might help him in here, and would certainly make him more comfortable out there.

Speaking of comfort, now that Tarkin was properly awake, he may as well break his fast. He stood, pulled his trousers back on, and walked to the cabinet to get out a ration bar. He wondered idly if it would be rude to eat in front of Vader. Vader's condition, if it wasn't already deteriorating, would begin to do so very soon, and neither of them knew when he'd next be able to nourish himself. But Tarkin wasn't going to improve anything by starving himself. He hesitated over the water bottles, then proffered one. "Do you think you can hydrate yourself with this? I don't know how your suit's fluid intake works."

"Give it to me," said Vader. He put down the floating blanket and opened the one that he'd wrapped himself in. He pulled in the water bottle and did something with it and his chest armor, under the blanket. There was a curious furtiveness to the movement, like that of a nursing mother. Tarkin decided to give what little privacy was available here, and looked away.

He paid close attention to picking through the ration bars. They were all of the very cheapest variety, one used mostly for prisoners. The better sorts of ration went to troops who needed to burn calories for physical combat or labor, or to officers who dealt with tactics or technical work and thus had to keep their mental energy up. People sitting in an escape pod, by contrast, needed only the bare minimum to stay alive. There was only one flavor, which was helpfully labeled _Potato_.

Tarkin picked one out, peeled off the wrapper, and took a bite, chewing slowly. It tasted very much like a dry, dense, unseasoned raw potato.

"It appears you're not missing much," he said, keeping his eyes on his meal. He could hear the sound of the metal bottle bumping up awkwardly against the armor's material, and water trickling through; it sounded like some of it had spilled. "Do you need anything?"

"Nothing that you can provide," said Vader.

Tarkin made himself finish the ration bar, washing it down with more water. He choked down the last bits, and found to his annoyance that he was simultaneously unwilling to eat another potato ration bar ever again, yet still hungry.

The sounds Vader was making had stopped by this time, so Tarkin returned to his bench. His legs were beginning to cramp, and he turned to sit at an angle so he could stretch them without kicking Vader. "We should work out what we'll do when help arrives."

"That will depend on the circumstances," Vader said. He picked his folded blanket up and Force-turned it this way and that.

"It will. There are a few scenarios. The most likely is that, by the time they've found us, they've already driven away or destroyed any pirates remaining. It's possible that the ships will be leave the sector even before help arrives; if they're intelligent, they'll reason out that when an Imperial ship disappears, there's follow-up, and that they ought not to be here when the follow-up arrives. The only question is if they understand how large the follow-up will really be; it's quite possible that they don't realize you and I were on board. When we're safe again and find out what occurred, we'll see if it's worth directly giving chase, or if-"

"Tarkin," Vader interrupted, sounding even surlier than its usual. "Do not do this. There is no need."

"I don't see what's wrong with planning and keeping our minds occupied-"

"Stop."

Tarkin looked over at him, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"

Vader hesitated, then looked away, busying himself with his folded blanket. He measured it against the hole in his armor again, then held it out, seeming to reconsider something.

"Why, Vader?"

Vader spoke low and roughly. "When help arrives, I will not be in a position to assist further with this mission. I will require repairs. I truly do not care what you will do at your work without me."

Oh.

Well, that ought not to have been a surprise. Tarkin knew Vader's current medical situation; he just hadn't thought it through to all its conclusions. Vader had said that they were biding their time until the opportunity came again to act; but Tarkin hadn't realized just how _much_ time that could be.

"How are you feeling now?" Tarkin asked, unable to think of a more diplomatic way to put it. "Are you... feeling many ill effects, yet?"

Vader's voice was halting, as if he found it difficult to admit. "Not many. It is cold and I am tired. I will be in more pain soon."

Not long ago, Vader wouldn't have admitted vulnerability like this to Tarkin at all. But they'd been making good progress, these last few dates. "And planning something that won't involve you isn't a good distraction."

"No."

Tarkin looked at Vader carefully. Blundering out into the snow had been a terrible idea, but it might at least have kept Vader occupied and his spirits higher. "Would you have preferred if I hadn't made you stay in here?"

Vader made a frustrated gesture, pushing his folded blanket to arm's length in the air. "Your logic was sound."

"Well." Tarkin rearranged himself on his bench. "We'll both do better if we have some means of keeping our minds occupied. What would you prefer to talk about?"

There was a bright flash of red and Tarkin jerked backward, startled. Vader had ignited his lightsaber. He made three quick motions in the air and then flicked the weapon back off. The blanket fell to the floor, a split second later, in several precisely shaped pieces.

"I have already told you what I wish to do," Vader said sourly, as if nothing had happened. "And you have denied me."

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. He no longer felt as repelled by the idea of sex as before. But getting into a good position in the escape pod, cleaning up afterwards, and all sorts of other logistical components of the act would be awkward. And Vader's sulky mood wasn't very attractive.

Yet, despite his unhappiness, Vader had stopped asking after being turned down the first time. He was learning more patience, at least.

"You know," said Tarkin, "one day I'm going to teach you to be properly seductive. As opposed to storming in and _requiring_ sex, as if it's a military objective. Or sulking when it doesn't appear."

Vader opened the first aid kit and Force-rifled through it, picking up some of the sticky tape. "Do my needs disturb you?"

Tarkin impulsively transferred himself to Vader's bench, beside him. He was careful not to disturb the piles of blanket fragments. "No," he said lightly, "but let's make this a game. I've made you tell me in words what you want before, remember?"

"Yes," said Vader, suspicious. He picked up one piece of blanket, of a similar size to the hole in his armor, and pulled out the roll of tape, affixing it to one side.

"I'll give you what you want, then, but only when you've explained something to my satisfaction. I want you to tell me _why_ you want it."

Vader turned to him fully, putting the blanket and the tape down. "I should not need to justify myself."

Ah, but Tarkin had Vader's attention now. And he could draw this out as long as he liked. "Don't think of it as justifying your feelings, but as expressing them. Convince me. Make me feel what you feel."

Vader tilted his head scornfully. "I could do that with the Force, but you would not enjoy it."

"But that's precisely the beauty of words. They let you convey exactly what you mean, but at a bit more of a remove. Without having to break directly into the other person's head."

"You would not enjoy the words, either."

Tarkin leaned in, a smile playing at his lips. "We're in the business of making each other suffer, aren't we? Try me."

Vader took Tarkin's upper arm in his large, gloved hand. It wasn't a violent grab, but it was _very_ firm; Tarkin didn't think he could easily squirm away, and he suspected the gesture was calculated to drive that point home.

"You were going to come to Mustafar," said Vader. "You would have seen me out of my suit. I would have _let_ you. I was... prepared. Instead we were sent here on a doomed ship with an incompetent crew. We are freezing, trapped, sleepless, lacking in food. We will not have each other forever. You were supposed to spend the night warm beside me, with your hands on my skin. But all that is available now is our usual sex, and you would deny me even that."

Tarkin considered all that. _We will not have each other forever. _He'd thought he'd soothed Vader out of the fear Palpatine induced, but apparently not.

Or perhaps that was simply how Vader viewed the world. He spent more time around death than almost anyone. He'd lost virtually everything at once, the day he took his name. Vader had begun their relationship terrified that his violent blunders or his master's schemes might cause Tarkin's death. Maybe he couldn't help but approach relationships this way, feeling their inherent impermanence too keenly. Maybe that was one of the reasons he'd been frightened to begin.

"Well," Tarkin said, taking Vader's hand in his. "No one said it had to be _usual._"

Vader leaned in ever so slightly; oh, Tarkin had him now. Just like that, he was no longer sulking and demanding, but willingly taking Tarkin's lead. "What do you propose?"

Tarkin hadn't fully planned what he wanted out of this exchange. But Vader wanted affection and attention, and few things put Tarkin into that mood faster than getting his own way.

"You wanted to take me to Mustafar," said Tarkin. "I want that, too, but I don't think we ever fully talked through what we expected. Let's... fantasize. Let's talk about what it would be like."

He suspected that he would enjoy this. It would also be a good way to trick Vader into actual planning. One of the things that had given Tarkin pause was that, once they got to Mustafar, he wasn't quite sure what would be expected of him. Vader would want to be seen and touched, obviously. He would probably want sex even if it was a terrible idea, and they'd have to awkwardly negotiate that the way they had in the meditation chamber. But even that part of it hadn't been mentioned directly. Nor had the protocols of that part of the fortress, the emotional tone Vader imagined for their encounter, the small affectionate gestures and forms of touch that would most interest him. Let alone any limits, or any sober discussion of how to avoid medical danger.

Vader hesitated. "I am not certain what it would be like."

"Well, let's talk about the parts you do know and extrapolate. How would it start? We'd go to your personal quarters, wouldn't we? On the fortress's second floor. What are they like?"

"There is a large room," said Vader, "suspended within the fortress's structure. It has its own atmospheric controls and is pressurized like a meditation chamber. It has an open space in which medical equipment can be arranged when necessary, and it has the bacta tank I told you of, in the center of the room."

Tarkin nodded. "So we'd go in there."

"Yes. At the end of the day, when it was time for me to remove my suit. There is a padded table on which I lie during the process."

"And that droid of yours helps, doesn't she?"

"Yes."

"Would she be in the room?" Tarkin had met Vader's favorite medical droid, a chirpy little model named M4-R3K. She'd treated Tarkin's lava-monster-related injuries quite competently. Her personality had grated on him, though, and he suspected the feeling was mutual. Her presence during an intimate moment would be... awkward.

"She would have to be, at first." Vader looked at Tarkin in amusement. "You dislike her."

"I... yes. But I don't want your medical needs going unmet, so I'll have to be polite about it. She knows about your plans for this visit, doesn't she? Have you mentioned them to her?"

"Yes."

Tarkin frowned, distracted by this new train of thought. M4-R3K might be able to warn them or stop them before they did anything harmful; that might actually be useful, if she could refrain from annoying comments the rest of the time. "What does she think about it?"

"She hates the idea."

That could mean a lot of things, but it wasn't a good sign. "What does she hate about it? Is she worried about anything in particular?"  


"All of it. She believes it to be medically inadvisable in every aspect. But she is mine, and I have overruled her."

Tarkin drew back. "I'm not sure I should encourage you to go against medical advice." He could just picture that: Vader pushing as he had in the meditation chamber, Tarkin giving in because he didn't know Vader's medical needs well enough to foresee the danger. And then Vader - just suddenly dying, or having some sort of awful malfunction, and Tarkin having to explain the situation to both M4 and the Emperor. He liked this less and less the more he thought about it.

Vader's grip tightened even further around Tarkin's arm, pulling him insistently back in. "You said you wanted to fantasize, not argue. You are such a believer in exerting your will, yet you let yourself be held back by these minutiae."

"Medical danger to you isn't _minutiae,_ Vader."

"Let me be the judge of that."

Tarkin pulled Vader's hand off of him. To his surprise, Vader acquiesced. "No. We need to talk about this. Do you remember what I said to you on Scarif? I can't let you use me as a tool with which you do harm to yourself. If there is a danger, I need to be aware of the danger. I need to know your _plan_. I need to - consent to it."

"Em-four has no true basis for concern, despite the many she listed. She is over-protective, as are you. I learned from Scarif. I have mental defenses in place now. I can handle whatever occurs."

"Can you?" Tarkin shifted away from Vader on the bench, very tense. The close quarters, and the lack of food and sleep, were getting to him. "Because I am beginning to seriously doubt it. Let me recite for you the warning signs I've seen merely in one night. You've asked to try sexual acts that are patently impossible for you. You've responded to a temporary rejection by violently lashing out. You've convinced me mid-scene to touch you in ways that you couldn't handle without lashing out further. And you've convinced me to sleep outside my quarters and miss Force knows how many minutes of frantic emergency signaling from our crew, who are now all dead because of us. Do you truly expect me to trust your judgment after all of that? I _don't._ I don't even trust mine."

He abruptly sat back. He'd meant that to be a somewhat smaller outburst than what had actually come out.

"The _Overseer_ was not because of us," Vader said. "Sleeping in your quarters would not have saved the crew. It would merely have made it harder for me to save you."

"I don't care," said Tarkin. He wanted another room to storm off into. He wanted food that wasn't potato ration bars, tea or caf or maybe both, a hot shower, a proper bed. He wanted his joints to stop bothering him. He wanted to stop having to look at Vader, knowing that his own discomfort was nothing compared to his lover's, and that his attempts at affection and comfort had only made things worse.

"I have survived injuries that ought to have been my death," said Vader. "I risk my life in the line of battle every day. It should be for me to choose when else I risk it. Em-four will not deny me that risk, not if I order her. Even my master does not deny that to me."

"Maybe your master is wrong," Tarkin snapped.

Vader went very quiet, abruptly, at that. Tarkin tensed further, half-expecting violence. Counting, as he sometimes did, Vader's breaths.

Ten.

Twenty.

Vader was a weapon. Tarkin admired that about him, his deadliness, his power. Vader wanted to take absurdly large risks for sexual purposes, but perhaps, compared to the other things he'd learned to take in stride, they weren't so large. Tarkin didn't like it, though.

Vader was sitting quietly, though obviously unhappy. He didn't look immediately on the verge of murdering anyone.

"Think of it this way," Tarkin said. "You still have those other partners, don't you? At the sex club."

"From time to time," said Vader. "Does that distress you?"

"No, that's not my point." Tarkin waved a hand. "When you play with a submissive, that person knowingly takes on some risk. Yes?"

"Of course."

"And you're aware of the risks, too. No doubt there are forms of risk that don't bother you at all. You know your partners will experience fear and pain, and you accept that because it's the point. But there are other risks you can't accept so easily."

"Are there? Do you believe that all my toys matter to me?"

"There are, Vader. _Try_ to keep up. Do you remember my first visit to Mustafar? You were terrified you'd kill me. So, imagine you were with some other submissive. Imagine they came to you with a fantasy they wanted to enact. A horribly dangerous fantasy, one that might very well kill them, even with your level of skill. And suppose that, when you objected, they got angry. Suppose they said that they were accustomed to risk; they were a - a bounty hunter or something and risk was their job. They consented to you possibly killing them, and therefore, they saw your hesitance as a failure to respect their choice. You would be uncomfortable with that, Vader, wouldn't you?"

"_You_ consented to my possibly killing you," Vader said coldly.

Tarkin drew himself angrily further upright. "I did not. When did I do that?"

"On that very visit to Mustafar. When I was frightened I would kill you. You said that you did not believe I would harm you, but that you accepted the risk. You stated that you were a risk to me, too. Yet you will not allow me to accept the very same risk you claimed for yourself."

"That-" Tarkin spluttered. "That is _different, _Vader. When I accepted the risk to me, I understood what it was. I was able to evaluate it with a clear head and to determine that, despite some undeniable hazards, the danger wasn't as bad as what your fears had been telling you. Here you have very real medical risks to which your actual primary medical care provider has objected and you won't even be clear with me about what they _are. _I can't just blithely accept that."

"You are willfully ignorant. You do not understand medicine and you do not understand the Sith."

Tarkin abruptly got up off the bench and dropped himself back into his own nest of blankets. He turned onto his side and faced the wall, his knees curling in as much as the bench's limited width allowed. He badly wished for quarters of his own. Some door he could shut, instead of listening to Vader's ominous breath a foot away. "I don't care what you think that I do or don't understand. I've expressed that there are limits to what I'll consent to. If you find that unacceptable, it isn't a discussion worth having. I'm - going back to bed."

"That is not a bed," Vader started, "and you cannot sleep-"

"Do not speak to me."

He was half afraid Vader would disobey. The whole nightmare spooled out in the back of his mind: if Vader wanted to, there was very little to stop him from continuing to speak. Or from seizing Tarkin physically, or from doing whatever else he liked. There was nowhere Tarkin could go, except out in the snow to freeze to death. Normally he was good at keeping Vader in line, but this morning wasn't normal.

And, as Vader's condition deteriorated, it was going to get progressively less so.

He hadn't really thought this through, before.

Vader didn't speak again, though. Tarkin waited a few breaths, and then pulled the top blanket up over his head, trying to muffle that constant mechanical puff of air. He took some long breaths of his own. Counted in his head. Tarkin was a person whose anger ran cold, but that didn't mean it didn't take effort to keep it in check, some days. Sometimes he had to carefully rein himself in, to remember patience, rather than freezing everyone out entirely.

He would be able to handle this, once he'd pulled himself together. Tempers ran high in enclosed ships, when help was uncertain or when officers were in pain; he and Vader were falling prey to that as everyone did. Now wasn't the time to try to hash out relationship issues. Now was the time to patiently redirect to something they could be more optimistic about. He'd do that. He'd - if they _had_ to discuss Mustafar, he'd ask more specific questions about what the droid objected to. Maybe there was a workaround. Or maybe there was something else pleasant to talk about, like... pain. Ugh.

He lay there uncomfortably, the blankets pulled up over him, for a long time.

Vader was silent at first, apart from the breath. Eventually Tarkin heard him quietly moving, doing something complicated with the fragments of blanket and the sticky tape. Tarkin listened to it, dully annoyed. Gradually his awful tension drained away into a more resigned dullness. He didn't actively desire Vader's absence anymore. But he wasn't ready to turn around yet, because he didn't yet have a clear idea of what he could constructively say.

Finally he heard the muffled sound of Vader putting the blankets down, and the creak of the bench as Vader moved off of it. Tarkin tensed again, listening carefully. It sounded like nothing more than a careful repositioning, but it seemed to go on for a long time, and a little too close.

"Tarkin," said Vader.

"What?" said Tarkin through his teeth. The voice came from somewhere too close, too low. Was Vader sitting on the floor?

"I understand."

Tarkin rolled over and looked up from under the blankets, irritated. "What do you think that you could possibly-"

Vader wasn't sitting; he was _kneeling._

It wasn't a full genuflection. He had settled down on both of his knees, both hands palm up on his thighs, his head slightly bowed. This was a more comfortable position for Vader than the single-knee obesiance that the Emperor demanded, but Tarkin knew very well that kneeling hurt him either way, and he'd assumed the position anyway, freely and fully correct.

Tarkin swallowed hard and sat all the way upright.

Vader had only ever knelt to him once before, on Scarif, when he'd specifically negotiated and asked for it. Tarkin had loved that sight with an embarrassing intensity. It was... transparent, in a way; Vader hadn't been able to bluster his way into an agreement, so now he would try something he knew Tarkin liked. It was a trick that Tarkin, perhaps, should not fall for. But it still made the blood sing in his veins.

"You fear failing in your duties," Vader said. "You fear inadvertently doing harm. I understand that. What I fear is having to be alone again. When I have pushed you too far in your fear, you push back against mine. It is a devious punishment. But I understand."

Tarkin's mouth had gone dry. There was something very wrong with this, despite its beauty. What did it say about Vader, that could only respect Tarkin's boundaries when he thought of them as _punishments?_

Yet it was nearly correct, in a slantwise way. Tarkin's silence was something he had done because he disapproved of how Vader behaved. That was, at least, half of what punishments were.

But what did it say about Vader, that, sensing what he thought was a punishment - without that being an agreed-upon part of their dynamic; without any agreement that Tarkin was playing dominant at all - he submitted so suddenly and completely?

What did it say about Tarkin, that he liked the sight of it so much?

Carefully, he reached forward and laid two fingers under the chin of Vader's mask, guiding his gaze back up. He leaned forward slightly, so that as Vader tilted his head back up to its natural position, Tarkin's forehead came to rest against his. Vader was so tall; even kneeling on the floor like this, his head wasn't much lower in the air than Tarkin's own.

"I don't mean it as a punishment," Tarkin said. "It's simply that I don't know how to move forward sometimes. And so I stop."

"We can discuss Em-four's opinions," said Vader. "Later. We can work through the practicalities carefully, if that is what you require. But I do not want to do that now. It is cold here and I am tired and my body hurts me. It is not the time for a talk about what my body will and will not safely allow. Let me have something good, now, in spite of it."

Tarkin swallowed hard again, remembering the fantasy he'd had last night of Vader begging. This was at least halfway to it. Oh dear.

He patted the bench beside him. "Why don't you get up? It can't be comfortable there on the floor." Vader silently obeyed, and Tarkin watched him, desirous but wary, as he settled in among the blankets. "It seems trying to fantasize about Mustafar was the wrong idea. We could fuck in our more normal way, if you'd prefer. We haven't had a full scene like that in a while. Or-" What was it that Vader had said? _You said you wanted to fantasize, not argue._ "If you liked the idea of sharing our fantasies, we could try it another way. We could agree explicitly that it's only fantasy, and that we're discussing what we wish we could do, not what we believe we ought to. And we could go from there."

"We could do both."

Tarkin's eyes narrowed. "That's what you thought I meant all along, isn't it? That's where this whole thing fell apart." Vader had thought they were sharing their wildest dreams, and Tarkin had thought they were planning.

"Do not dwell on it." Vader's Force-touch constricted around Tarkin's wrists, pulling them back behind him. He tugged them this way and that a moment; the position that he settled on felt surprisingly good, lightly stretching some of the sorest muscles in Tarkin's shoulders. "Think of what you want, not what will stand in your way. Exert your will."

Tarkin looked up at him, relaxing into it. "I do want it; I hope you realize that. I want to be able to touch you the way you touch me."

"But you like words, do you not? Tell me more."

"It's so simple when it's me. You can worm your way into any part of me. You can hurt me, but it doesn't have to hurt. I want all that for you, too. I want to touch you as you deserve to be touched, freely, rough or gentle as the mood strikes us. I want to press my body against yours, skin to skin. I don't care about the scars; I simply wish I could touch you without harming you. I don't know that we can ever have that, even on Mustafar. But I do want it."

He felt an answering jolt of Force-touch, something that shivered its way up his spine. It wasn't Vader's full focusing process. Not a whole exploration of his body, just a tease. An invitation. But he liked it.

"Would you fuck me if you could?" Vader asked. "In my corpse of a body?"

"It's not a corpse, Vader. You are strong. You move. You speak and feel. I've _seen_ corpses, and they're quite inert. That's not you. I would, though." Tarkin paused; he thought he knew what Vader's own hopes were, but it was best to make sure. "Do you want that, too?"

"Yes."

There was a gruff longing in Vader's voice, surprisingly clear. Vader knew what ordinary sex felt like, of course. He had fathered a child before his accident; he must remember it, the press of soft healthy skin to skin. The simple, tender, eager ways two bodies moved against each other. What a torment it would be, to remember that and be sealed off from it forever. Vader had adapted well; he'd found other ways to share pleasure, marvelous ways in their own right. But Tarkin - with nothing more than a curious brush of his fingers and an impulsive kiss, on Scarif - had reminded him that these were only workarounds, and now Vader could not forget it. He had harmed Vader already, perhaps, by reawakening that desire. But it was not a thing that could be undone.

He leaned forward. It was pleasant enough, having his hands Force-bound, but he wanted to reach out and touch Vader. Run his fingertips over the contours of that mask again. "Would you want me inside you? Or the reverse? Or both?"

"Both," Vader said immediately. "I want it every possible way."

Tarkin felt his mouth shape into a slight, predatory smile. "There are quite a lot of those, you know. We'd need time to go through them all. I should dearly love to have that kind of time with you."

Vader leaned in, too, mirroring him. "Would you like to have your hands freed?"

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. "Do you have something in mind?"

Vader hesitated, and Tarkin was abruptly unsure of himself. Perhaps this would be another enticing yet terrible idea, like the ones in the meditation chamber. If Vader wanted him to _do_ something inadvisable, right now, then that would break the spell of fantasy entirely.

"Em-four had various concerns," Vader said in an odd, careful tone, as if to forestall the objections he knew were coming. "But none of them were about my skin. She mentioned - breath, pulse, disease, movement out of the suit, a number of other things. It is not good for my skin to be exposed to the air. But the skin itself - its surface integrity - is not fragile. Given that it is already exposed, your hands would do no further harm."

Oh. Somehow, Tarkin hadn't even considered that the breach in Vader's armor could be used sensually. It would have occurred to him if Vader was able-bodied, which perhaps didn't say anything good about Tarkin; if he'd seen some attractive officer's uniform dramatically torn in the line of duty, it would have crossed his mind. But there was still some part of Tarkin that instinctively thought of the suit as Vader's body, the mask as his face. The outer damage had registered to him only as a wound.

"I thought you patched that up," said Tarkin; but he could see plainly, now that he was paying attention, that the fabric underlayer of Vader's suit still gaped open. "What were you doing with all those blankets and tape, then?"

"Attempting to patch it," Vader said, sounding only mildly abashed. "It did not work. The tape will not adhere to the material."

"Oh," said Tarkin. "But you're hurt there."

Vader was improving in his methods, though. He'd given an actual explanation as to why he believed this was safe; or safe enough to accept the remaining risk, at least. That perhaps deserved rewarding.

Although - Vader had used those improved methods only after getting Tarkin into a receptive mood, appealing to his interests, making him admit that he wanted to touch Vader's skin. He hadn't even mentioned the breach in his armor until that occurred, not even before their argument. Vader hadn't only learned from Tarkin's objections; he'd also learned to be a little manipulative.

Tarkin didn't mind that as much as he ought to. He'd said he wanted to make Vader seductive, after all.

"Only a surface cut. I cleaned and dressed it already. There is other skin also exposed. It would be better if that had not occurred, but we have time to turn it to our advantage. I would like you to touch me while we fantasize. It would... help."

And if Vader was being manipulative, then Tarkin particularly admired that last bit, in particular, the slight admission of weakness and pain, when Vader knew how Tarkin liked to see his vulnerabilities. If it had been loud and petulant, or if there had been any insincerity, then it wouldn't have worked, but it did.

Tarkin did want it, Vader's strange scarred skin under his fingertips, his palm warm against Vader's side. He wanted to be the one who was allowed in like that. He wanted to feel Vader's body shifting with his breath, his posture, his pulse.

"Do you feel you have the werewithal to do as you did in the meditation chamber?" Tarkin asked. "Whatever mental defenses those are that you use. This may not be as intimate as kissing, but I imagine it will still bring up memories."

"I am prepared," said Vader. "Do you want your hands free to touch me?"

"Yes," Tarkin said.

Vader released his hands and pulled him closer.

"Now?" said Tarkin.

"Yes."

He took a steadying breath and reached out, taking his time, letting his fingers find the edges of the breakage first. The chestplate had broken a bit off to the side, over Vader's lower ribs. Below the jagged durasteel corners, there was the complicated quilted fabric and the tear in it, leaving layers of varied material hanging down to expose the skin. Tarkin could see at least some of that pale skin, and the bandage across it. He was careful not to put his fingers directly on the bandage. He reached instead, hardly daring to breathe, for the pale skin beside it - half an inch away, just to be safe. He let two fingertips meet Vader's flesh there, feather-light.

He could feel Vader's body heat, surprisingly strong. He hadn't been able to feel that in the meditation chamber, with the air already warmed to body temperature. He could not feel the contours of the ribs, only leathery skin over firm muscle, but he felt the chest's gentle movement, steadily expanding and contracting, in time with the sound of Vader's breath.

"See?" Tarkin said, marveling at that movement. "Not a corpse. How does that feel?"

Vader sounded strangely uncertain. "Cold."

"Should I stop?"

"No."

"Should I find some way of warming up my hands, perhaps?"

"Your hand is not cold. Moving the fabric lets more air in. That is all. Do not stop."

"Are you sure?"

"I can take it. I want to." There was something strange in Vader's voice. Some element near desperation. That hint of begging again; Tarkin ought not to have loved it as much as he did. He was half-hard in his trousers, drawn in despite himself by the way Vader wanted him. "Keep speaking. Your mind feels better when you speak. Remind me what you want of me."

This was part of Tarkin's role in these encounters, he knew. Vader did the bulk of the work of staying grounded, but Tarkin helped. Tarkin's job was to steady him, to remind him what he was meant to focus on.

"Focus on me, Vader," he said, letting his fingertips inch further. Vader's breath was so deceptively steady; it always would be, with the mask on. Vader could be making those strange, half-crying faces even now, he could be panicking, and his breath would neither quicken nor hitch. "I'm here. I've got you. We're still in this dreadfully underequipped escape pod on Hethea 1, passing the time together until help arrives. We're simply touching each other for the love of it, that's all. You're here with me." He paused; Vader did not usually ask to be reminded of what Tarkin wanted. "I want you to feel me. I want what I'm doing to feel good to you. If it doesn't feel good, we can stop, but I think we'll make it work."

"I will not stop," Vader insisted. "I can do it. I can take more."

Tarkin frowned slightly. This was not Vader's usual refrain in the meditation chamber. "Are you sure-"

"More," Vader insisted, and Tarkin obediently reached a little further, letting his fingers stroke lightly over the unbroken skin.

"You're here with me," he said. "It's all right."

"I can feel it," said Vader. "It is working. I can feel the weapon."

Tarkin blinked and drew his hand back, confused by the non sequitur. "I... wasn't aware that was what we were going for. Are you sure you're all right, Vader?"

"No," said Vader, in a bizarre desperation, lurching toward him. "I can handle it, master. I-"

Tarkin jerked entirely away, as fast as if he'd been burned. He scrambled as far back as the limited space would allow, his heart suddenly pounding.

What _was_ this? What awful memory was Vader reliving? Tarkin had thought that the only danger, psychologically, was from memories of his wife. Not... not _this._

"Vader," said Tarkin, in a voice as delicate as cut glass, "I need you to tell me where you are. I need you to tell me who you believe I am."

Vader tilted his head, considering Tarkin with detachment, the way a reptile might consider its prey.

"I am very near to the weapon," Vader said. "And _you_ are in my way."

There was a horrible crash. The entire right side of the escape pod, the side that wasn't buried in the snowbank, came apart in a shrieking cacophony of sparks. The snow-laden wind blew in all at once, biting and freezing against Tarkin's skin, taking his breath away.

"Vader!" he shouted, but Vader did not glance back at him. Vader only strode impatiently out into the snow, his cape snapping behind him.

Tarkin grabbed at a blanket, panicked and instinctive, clawing for something to shield himself from the painful cold. Before he'd even gotten it properly around him, Vader was already gone. Swallowed up by white, in the way that storms swallowed people, leaving only a heavy set of footprints behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout-out to adalric who reminded me that, um, there is a blizzard and also pirates and a mysterious weapon and maybe the characters should. be thinking about these things. instead of just their relationship drama. the first 1/5 or so of this chapter is dedicated to you :P
> 
> also shout-out to SpookySpaghetties who had the idea, over tumblr messages, that Vader might be triggered by physical contact for other reasons besides just Padmé. it was a great idea and very mean and i used it. wheeeee
> 
> ALSO I don't think this is funny to anyone but me but for some reason I am endlessly amused by potato rations. I have just been saying the words "potato rations" to myself periodically and giggling. idk


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader comes only halfway to his senses; snow is, as expected, cold; ancient mechanisms are unintentionally activated; and Tarkin makes a coat out of three blankets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content note: there's a sheev in this chapter and it's not nice.

It had been a long time ago, not long after he took his name, when the suit still felt newly oppressive and his health was still uncertain - as opposed to the certain, predictable misery to which he had eventually become resigned.

Palpatine did not touch Vader often, and never for pleasure. If Tarkin had asked for an exhaustive list of all the memories Vader associated with being touched, all the old griefs from which he needed to protect himself, it might not even have occurred to Vader to list this one. It wasn't that he'd forgotten. It just... went in a different category. It wasn't a sex thing. There'd barely been any touch in it at all.

Vader had lain on his padded table in his room, with Palpatine standing over him, ritual materials at the ready. This was before he'd built M4, and before he'd had Vaneé; a different servant had helped him out of his armor before being curtly dismissed. They were alone now.

Palpatine had explained the rationale for this ritual before the arrangements were made. Vader had diffidently agreed; he hadn't really cared about anything, back in those early days. Emotions had surged through him constantly, rage and grief and all the other necessary components of Sith practice, but that wasn't the same as caring. There was no point caring.

They were going to try to heal his stupid lungs, that was all. Palpatine had some ideas involving Sith alchemy, which was an art for which Vader had no aptitude: lots of fiddly work, potions and tinctures, lots of bullshit he didn't have the patience for. With the right chemical and ritual assistance, Palpatine believed Vader could be induced to use the Force to feel the details of what was wrong in each of his cells, and to make corrections accordingly. Perhaps, even now, he could repair his prior failures and become the healthy, strong apprentice he was meant to be.

Vader lay there now, naked, without even his prosthetic limbs. There was no concession to modesty. Just the stump of him, raw and ill and exposed.

"I provide the framework," Palpatine said. "But remember, to heal your own body, the power must come from you. Your anger. Your focus. Your pain."

"Yes," Vader said, not caring. He knew what Palpatine really meant: this would hurt, in more than one way, and he would deal with it as he'd been taught to.

"Unless you are not ready," Palpatine said, in his soft, mocking tone. Pretending to care for Vader's comfort, as he sometimes did. "Unless you feel too weak today to harness your true power."

"I can do it," Vader said, teeth agrit.

"As you wish."

The beginning of the ritual was entirely mental, a focusing and channeling which a non-Force-sensitive observer, if one had been in the room, would not have been able to see. To Vader it was as plain as an unveiling or a shift in shape. Palpatine's aura grew to its full size, made of a darkness that burned like the cold of space: a hate so intense that it had long ago lost its own reasons, collapsed in on itself, obliterated whatever else had once existed in that mind and become its own cackling, conniving, living thing. His physical form was blurry to Vader's eyes, but he knew it had not changed, except for the subtlest shifts in posture and gaze. The cracking open of one of those strange leers which the Imperial public never saw.

Vader did as he'd been taught, dropping into a form of meditation, one designed not for self-soothing or for contemplation of the Dark Side's presence but for active, difficult internal work. He didn't know what it looked like to Palpatine's senses. He felt powerful in this state, burning like the lava river below him, but strangely raw. All too aware of his skin, his shaky lungs, so many ugly spots of weakness in what ought to have been the Empire's strongest weapon. He did not like it, feeling the moment so keenly. But he could endure.

The chanting came next. Palpatine's voice intoned a long series of words in Balc that Vader mostly didn't understand; he had so far learned only the simplest ceremonial phrases. He could pick up the gist, more from the feel of Palpatine's mind than from the words themselves. Anger, pain, endurance, transformation.

Finally Palpatine unstoppered a small black alchemical vial. Strange blue steam poured from its mouth as he held it out, suspended over Vader's supine body.

"This will hurt you," he said, in his mockingly concerned tone, returning to Basic. They'd been talking, in their lessons, about what it meant to draw on pain. To let the most awful passions flow unimpeded, to use them as an engine used its fuel. "But you must remember that it only hurts you because of the failures of your body. It's unfair, isn't it, that a healthy person could endure so much more easily? Let yourself hate that about it. Feel your hate, and then ask it what needs to be done. Are you ready?"

"Yes," said Vader again. His body already hurt, intensely, as usual. If Palpatine was going to hurt him even more, he should just get on with it.

Holding out the vial above Vader with the Force, Palpatine gently, carefully tipped out its contents.

The alchemical liquid landed in the center of Vader's chest, freezing where it touched and sending up further gouts of that strange steam. Vader arched, crying out. He had never liked cold, but before his accident it had simply been an irritant, like hunger or fatigue. Nowadays, with his nerve endings fucked up and his suit constantly warming him, cold had become something foreign and terrifying.

"Focus," said Palpatine's voice above him. "_Focus,_ my friend. Use this."

Vader did as he was told. He focused on the pain, his anger at having to feel it, his hate for the body that made him feel this way. He hated Palpatine, too; it was entirely within bounds to use that in a ritual. But it was a background element, the same hate as always. It gave him more power, but his true focus had to be on himself, on the problem that this ritual was meant to solve.

The cold liquid dripped slowly down both sides of his chest. He felt as if all his ribcage, everything encasing the lungs, was freezing solid like one of Naboo's winter lakes. He gasped a breath, and then choked as his lungs filled with cold blue steam instead of air.

He could feel what was wrong, inside and out. He boiled with hate. He knew very well what needed to be done. He needed to _fix_ this. He needed to - be stronger. Be whole.

But he did not know _how._

"Yes," Palpatine purred. "Good. I feel your hate. But you are not using it as you could. Is this, perhaps, too much for you, my broken friend?"

"No," said Vader, barely panting out the word. That was the only thing that frightened him more than continuing. A true Sith could endure any suffering, because suffering was power. If he was too weak for _this,_ he would have nothing else left.

That was when Palpatine touched him, idly, tracing with a wizened hand the outline of Vader's lungs. That was what had brought this memory up so strongly, not the cold or the touch over his ribs but both together, in his altered state. "What do you need, then? In order to harness your power fully? You know the answer; tell me."

There was only ever one answer to a question like that, one thing a Sith needed if their current powers did not suffice.

"More," Vader croaked.

"If you're sure you want it," said Palpatine, pretending at reluctance. "If you're sure you can endure."

"Please," said Vader, hating his master, hating himself.

Palpatine withdrew his hand. Vader couldn't quite see if he'd added a second vial, or if he only had to tip the first one out further. But he felt the additional splash of cold, worse than the first. His lungs seized, one single block of ice, unable to fully make the motion of breathing in or out.

It was working, though. He focused, and he felt every crevice of the inside of his agonized lungs, the alveoli, the collagen. He could feel where the damage was worst. In a moment he would be able to feel what needed changing, to move the very cells of his body in the right direction. If he could take just a little bit more, if he could hold more feeling in his ravaged nerves, focus harder. He could feel-

*

He could feel the Force.

There was snow all around him: a white sky full of blowing snow, and a white plain half-visible through it. The suggestions of white-covered crags loomed faintly in the middle distance. He did not remember how he had arrived here. He had been damaged, and it disturbed him that he did not remember that either. The freezing wind through the hole in his suit hurt like a brand. He couldn't think too hard about that pain, or he'd fall back into his memories again.

He did not know where he was, but it did not matter. He could feel.

In his more lucid moments, in between the stuttering of his mind, he registered subtler physical complaints. He felt hungry; Vader did not eat, but he still experienced hunger when he didn't have his nutrient packs on time, a hollow discomfort in his gut long-divorced from any desire to taste things. He must have missed one of them, and perhaps he'd missed other things. His body was in more pain than normal: muscles cramping, head pounding, joints grating against themselves. The suit was too heavy. Breathing hurt, and he couldn't think about that too hard, either. He felt light-headed, sleepy, and a little sick, which could have been the pain, or the skipped meal, or whatever was happening to his mind now, or all of the above.

None of that mattered. The weapon was in front of him, and it called.

He knew that it was very large, the size of a building, and it was embedded in the ground. It was alive, in the way that some Sith artifacts were: not like organic life, nor the simple mechanical mind of a droid, but something eldritch and immaterial. A concentration of Dark Side energies so intense that, when other life drew near to give it form, it could think for itself.

The weapon had been activated partway, and now it spun in an unsatisfied stasis, too awake to power down, but not yet able to fulfil its purpose. It needed him.

Him, and someone else. That was the way of the Sith. Always two.

Vader did not know where his master was. He did not feel him nearby. But it did not matter. If he went where he was called, if he did as he was told, everything else that was necessary would appear.

His side, where the suit exposed it, was beginning to prickle and go numb. That was better than the pain, at least. It did not matter either way. He would endure.

*

Vader had not, in the end, been strong enough to fully heal. Pain had overwhelmed him, and he had become clumsy and slow, blue-white spots dancing in his eyes and blending with the steam. He had made the alterations he could, before the potions lost their potency and the ritual dragged to an end.

He had not, however briefly, become able-bodied again. He had not even regained the ability to breathe on his own. But there was a small and lasting improvement, according to Palpatine. A subtle uptick in his vital signs, enough to forestall further deterioration. Palpatine had smiled condescendingly and informed him that it was a reasonable result, given his difficulties.

Vader never managed to feel the difference, though. Once he recovered from the ritual itself, he'd felt exactly the same as before.

_You don't seem to think very critically about what the Emperor tells you._ Where had Vader heard that? It seemed important, but he couldn't remember.

*

Tarkin started by putting the rest of his clothes on. The shirt, the socks and boots, the uniform jacket. It didn't help much against the blowing snow; he was shivering already. There was no cold-weather gear in the pod. He scrabbled in the blankets on his bench instead and tied them around himself as best he could. The windchill was a worse threat than the cold itself; he needed to be covered. One blanket around his waist, one over his shoulders and covering the hands, one wrapped around his head like a tribal garment. He looked ridiculous, but better ridiculous than dead.

This was a very bad situation, but he was not panicking. His thoughts had become quick and to-the-point, in the compartmentalized way that adrenaline sometimes allowed. He knew what his options were, and none were good, but he wasn't out of them yet. Mainly, he was annoyed with his hands for not moving faster.

He briefly held up the fourth blanket to the breach in the escape pod's side, wondering if he could patch the shelter up. It wasn't going to work, though. The breach was too large. Really an entire half of the pod had gone to shreds.

Onward, then, and the sooner the better. He affixed the pod's transmitter, still faithfully sending out its distress call, to his belt. Pulling the middle blanket more tightly around his shoulders, he struggled out into the trail Vader had left behind him.

Vader appeared to be dissociating severely. Even Tarkin probably couldn't safely deal with him in that state. If he didn't recognize his surroundings, he could easily mistake Tarkin for an enemy, slay him without a second thought. Tarkin had no illusions about that. If he caught up with Vader before Vader came to his senses, his chances weren't good.

They were, however, better than if he stayed with the pod. Staying there and freezing would have been certain death, unless help miraculously appeared within the next hour or so. Vader, at least, _might_ not kill him.

More importantly: Vader had said he felt the weapon. He was no doubt attempting to go towards it. The weapon was likely to be in the vicinity of pirates, and those pirates were likely to have shelter, in the form of, say, buildings or ships, which Vader could easily take from them. Or actual cold-weather gear, which could also be taken. If Tarkin caught up to Vader and didn't die, he could potentially make use of those things.

He fixed that faint hope in his mind as he pushed on through the storm.

In Tarkin's youth, he had learned to track large creatures through the jungles and mountains of his homeworld. Snow - deep like this, rising above his knees and slowly filling his boots - hadn't been in that repertoire. But Vader wouldn't be difficult to track through it. Vader was so solid and so heavy; his steps had carved a deep trail, cleaving the snowdrifts as obviously as the tracks of a tank. Tarkin simply had to focus on that path, and to hurry along before the blowing snow of the storm erased it from view.

At times, it was easy, apart from the cold. The snow left in Vader's wake became scant enough that he could break into a near-run, his breath puffing visibly in front of his face. Other times, half-collapsed banks swallowed the trail up almost completely. Those were the times when Tarkin pressed on hardest, unwilling to stop or to entertain the luxury of despair. If Vader's trail went cold, Tarkin would be even more dead out here than in the pod, lost in undifferentiated blinding white. He had no illusions about that, either.

Mostly, though, it was a labored slog through knee-high drifts and biting winds, along a path that was uneven and uncomfortable but plainly visible. And that gave Tarkin time to think, as he pressed on - shivering fully now, teeth chattering, fingers and nose going numb despite the blankets - about other problems.

Vader had begged Tarkin to keep going. He'd insisted he could handle it, and Tarkin had mistaken that for a sign of how badly Vader wanted him. He'd found it _hot_, how badly Vader seemed to want him. But that last cry of _I can handle it, master_ \- this suggested that, for at least those last few seconds, it hadn't been desire at all. Merely a desperation to please. To be strong. To avoid failing in the eyes of someone who could punish him on levels Tarkin couldn't comprehend.

Enduring pain was necessary in Vader's line of work. The Sith, if Tarkin understood correctly, took power from pain. But it hadn't been pain that set Vader into his altered state. Only a gentle touch on his bared skin. And cold air, perhaps. And, if he understood Vader's disjointed comments correctly, some attempt at heightening his senses. Yet it had been an ordeal: something he had to insist, in terror, over and over again, that he was strong enough to endure.

What in a thousand kriffing hells had the Emperor _done_ to this man?

Something other than snow abruptly loomed up through the storm. It was an edifice of black stone, half-buried, but with a wide doorway swept oddly clear by the wind. Not the kind of furtive temporary shelter that he'd imagined the pirates creating, but something that looked very, very old.

Hethea 1 wasn't supposed to have ever been inhabited by anyone who could build such a thing, but that was the least of Tarkin's concerns right now, really.

Beyond the doorway there seemed to be a bare, black stone room, too dim to make out much detail from outside. Vader stood there, a blurred dark silhouette with the telltale indicator lights on his torso, oddly still. Tarkin didn't see any pirates around, even dead ones, which was also odd.

Tarkin tried to will his teeth to stop chattering. This would be the moment of truth. Whatever this building was, it would provide at least a temporary shelter, good enough to keep them both alive. Either Vader was presently lucid enough to let Tarkin into it without killing him, or... not.

He edged forward.

Vader turned towards him, that familiar deep voice easily cutting through the higher wail of the wind. "Come no closer."

Tarkin paused. He was on the very lip of the heavy stone doorway. So close to having actual shelter. He definitely could not feel his nose, nor the tips of his thumbs.

"Vader," he said, his teeth chattering so hard that they made the name into an awkward stammer. "Do you know who I am?"

"You are Grand Moff Tarkin," said Vader. There was a hesitance in his voice, like he wasn't completely sure.

"Do you know how we got here?"

"We," Vader repeated, as if the word confused him. A pause. "We were on a date. Or a mission. Or - both. We were sent to find this weapon. I was not aware you were still here. You should not be."

Vader was beginning to regain touch with reality, then, but still thinking far from clearly, and he seemed to have some memory missing. He'd blacked out, perhaps; that was not uncommon, with dissociations as severe as what Tarkin had witnessed in the escape pod. "What's the last you remember about me?"

Vader looked at him, somehow affronted, as if Tarkin had asked something offputtingly difficult from him. "We were on a ship. We were in an escape pod. We were... awaiting rescue."

"Yes, those are three true statements."

"Why did you not stay with the pod? This does not concern you."

Tarkin took a deep breath. There were many extremely unhelpful ways he could have answered that question. "I would much rather have stayed with the pod. Tromping after you through a blizzard without proper cold-weather gear was assuredly not my original plan. However, it happens that the pod was destroyed, so I had to follow you here instead."

Vader's voice was halting, uncertain. "I did something. To the pod."

Tarkin looked up at him. "Do you remember?"

"No. But I can feel it in your mind."

Tarkin sighed shortly. "You did, Vader. You destroyed the pod. I don't believe you were in your right mind at the time."

The uncertainty had, if anything, grown deeper. "Did I hurt you?"

Tarkin's teeth chattered harder. "Not... directly. Though, obviously, the walk through the snow has not exactly been beneficial. I'm going to come in now, because I need to get out of this wind."

He edged past the doorway, into the gloomy black stone room. His teeth were still chattering hard, his fingers had gone numb, and his limbs ached. Even without the direct windchill, this room was open to the air, and not exactly a comfortable temperature. He suspected he had a case of hypothermia, but there weren't any medical facilities around to deal with that, nor any warm drinks or dry blankets at hand. He'd simply have to make do.

Vader had expressed concern for Tarkin's safety. Vader would therefore, probably, not kill him.

"You are not Sith," said Vader, turning more fully toward him. "It is sacrilege for you to be here."

"I won't touch anything," Tarkin said steadily. "I won't meddle with any artifacts lying around. But I prefer committing sacrilege to literally dying of exposure, so I'm afraid that's what I'm going to have to do."

He had made it all the way in now, to a corner of the room as far as possible from the blowing wind outside. His eyes were beginning to adjust to its dark interior. He couldn't see any furniture or items lying around, or any doors leading deeper into whatever this was. There was some sort of decoration or perhaps writing built into the walls: precise, irregular collections of lines carved in some alphabet Tarkin didn't recognize.

There were piles of snow stuck to him, caked over his blankets and over every other part of him that had been exposed to the air. They were now, at their edges, beginning to melt. The blankets' material did not appear to be water-resistant, and in patches they had already grown soggy. Cold wet fabric wasn't going to help Tarkin at all. He reluctantly untied all three of the blankets with clumsy hands and spread them out over the floor to dry. His uniform, particularly the lower legs, was also partly sodden, and the snow in his boots was beginning to melt, but there was no way to fix that at present, so he'd have to endure. He vigorously rubbed his hands together, trying to regain a bit of feeling. His skin was flushed with cold, but the tips of the fingers had gone ominously pale.

"You said you felt the weapon's presence," he said conversationally, after a moment. "It's in here, I take it? Somewhere in this building?"

Before Vader could answer, there was a rumbling crash.

The doorway he'd come in by slammed abruptly shut, a great black-stone slab falling to the ground to seal the entrance. There was an abrupt quiet, as the thick stone muffled the wind to nothing; and a small, petulant beep from the transmitter at Tarkin's side, informing him that it had lost reception.

At the same time, those small carvings in the walls lit up, blood-red. They illuminated the room in a sepulchral red way that reminded Tarkin faintly of Vader's meditation chambers. There were further rumblings, somewhere deeper in whatever strange structure this was.  Tarkin looked around, startled and wary.

"You are a fool," said Vader, his deep voice echoing in the dark space. "You have not listened to anything I have told you. This building_ is_ the weapon."

_Their temples were engines of destruction far more elegant and sacred than your Death Star,_ Tarkin belatedly remembered Vader saying.

"This building is a Sith temple, then," he managed, looking up at the crimson carvings even more warily than before. "From... before. From the Sith Empire, what, six thousand years ago? I'm amazed it still functions."

"The Force endures," said Vader.

"I didn't even know there were sentient life forms in this system six thousand years ago. This place must have been buried under ice until the climate began to warm." Tarkin looked over at Vader, perking up slightly. His fingers were still numb, but the shivering was beginning to subside, at least. "Does that mean we can use it to strike back against the pirates? You, ah, remember the pirates, don't you?"

"_You_ will not strike back against anything," said Vader, as surly as before. "This place is not for you."

"Well, yes, obviously, but _you're-_"

"Temples of this nature are meant to be explored by pairs of Sith," Vader continued, barreling on past any clarifications Tarkin might have cared to make. "Even before the Sith Empire fell, before the Rule of Two, masters and their apprentices already worked in pairs. Like the Jedi and their Padawans. That has always been the heart of Sith practice. This place called to me, and it was calling for another. I told you not to enter."

Tarkin blinked up at Vader, digesting this. "You're saying it just sealed us in here because it... believes I'm your apprentice. Or your master?"

And now it expected them to behave accordingly, and perhaps would keep them trapped in here until they did.

This was still at least slightly better than freezing to death.

"I have been in temples of this nature before," said Vader, turning to the wall as if to inspect the strange glowing runes there. "There is something wrong with this one. It should not have opened even its outer door until it sensed a properly bonded pair, both strong in the Dark Side and focusing together. But it was already open when I arrived. I cannot feel a malfunction, but this is not what should be-"

The rest of his words were drowned out by a loud buzz of energy as a ray shield snapped into the air between them, bisecting the room. It glowed red for a moment, then went black and entirely opaque, its initial buzz subsiding to a low hum. Leaving Tarkin alone with his snow-sodden blankets in his half of the room, cut off both from Vader and from the landscape outside.

He took a few breaths, reeling slightly. The adrenaline-fueled focus that had propelled him through the biting cold was beginning to wear off. He was still uncertain how survivable this was, but he no longer had the sense that he clearly understood the next thing to do. He needed his wits about him in a place like this, and he resented them for deserting him. If Vader was cut off and could no longer answer his questions, then he needed to think.

The temple had been waiting for a pair of people, then. If Vader's senses could be trusted. Its modus operandi was to wait for a pair to enter, and then trap them inside and separate them, in order to do... something.

Normally Tarkin was happy to take Vader's pronouncements on faith - he clearly had senses that others did not, and he clearly got results. But at the moment, with Vader only half conscious of what was happening around him, his senses might correspondingly be only half accurate.

Say for the sake of argument, though, that the temple had wanted a pair. Perhaps it had mistaken Tarkin for a Sith apprentice, but the true error might be much simpler. Perhaps it had merely detected two warm bodies, and its builders trusted those bodies - apprenticed or otherwise, Force-sensitive or not - to figure out what to do from there.

He did not imagine that the temple would be gentle with them if they failed to do so.

There was a grinding, creaking noise in the wall, and Tarkin turned toward it. He hadn't noticed any doors, aside from the one he'd come in by, but a new one was opening now, into a new, red-lit corridor.

Tarkin took physical stock of himself. It was warmer now that the outer door was shut, and his shivering had subsided to only an occasional tremor, but his hands weren't regaining sensation as quickly as he'd like. His feet, within his boots, felt cold and squishy and miserable.

There were two basic choices available. He could stride forward into the ominous unknown, hoping it wasn't a trap or a test or the beginning of some arcane Force task at which he would inevitably fail. Or he could hang back and wait helplessly in hopes that the ray shield might wink out again, and that Vader might still be waiting here to rescue him when that occurred.

Tarkin had worked with Vader for a very long time. He knew, very plainly, which of those choices was in line with Sith practice and which was not.

He gave a last glance to the buzzing black wall where Vader ought to be, and then he walked through the doorway, bracing himself for whatever madness lay in store.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tests are performed; visions are seen; everyone hurts; and Tarkin attempts to interrogate a Sith temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Guys! I am SO EXCITED about this Sith Temple sequence that we're moving into now. It was one of the first parts of this story that I knew I wanted to write. I had to rewrite this chapter a lot and really pare down the number of different ideas I was putting into it so that the tone and pacing and character arcs would work, because I had SO MANY IDEAS.
> 
> That said, I am an outliner, but I am also hilariously bad at anticipating where a story is going to go tone-wise when I start it, and I'm starting to feel like parts of this fic have gone right past whump into psychological horror. (Then again, maybe they haven't? I'm also bad at categories.)
> 
> I know some of you are Here For That - you know who you are! I know others of you are a little worried because everything's so bad and you just wanted to see these characters cuddle, dammit.
> 
> So, for that latter group: It's okay! This bit gets dark but they are going to canon-compliantly survive, and reconcile, and get to Mustafar, and eventually cuddle again! I have a projected number of chapters now, and I'm expecting they will spend about 4 chapters in the temple, which will include some dark things but also some sexy ones. After that, it'll all start to get better. You can still tap out if you want to, of course; that's always up to you.
> 
> Uhh speaking of which, minor tw for child death in this chapter. (It's brief, and the actual death is not depicted.)
> 
> Happy Halloween?

So. Tarkin was trapped, alone, in a Sith Temple. This was an inescapable fact - literally inescapable, hah - and instead of panicking or letting himself be cowed, he needed to work out how to turn it to his advantage.

Or survival. Tarkin would settle for mere survival, in a pinch.

He squared his shoulders as he walked through the corridor, refusing to slow his stride. It was very dark, everything hewn from an exotic black stone which reminded him of the Imperial Palace. The only light came from those angular carvings in the wall that looked like words - not too many words, only two or three at a time - and which glowed blood-red.

Nothing had leapt out at him yet. No traps were sprung. No further doors came violently down. No one demanded that he move objects with his mind or perform other impossible Force tasks - unless, of course, that was what all those letters in the wall spelled out.

Tarkin didn't know how long any of that would last. In the meantime, he could infer several things.

First: The temple was a weapon. That was why they were here. Tarkin liked weapons, and there were people in the vicinity who richly deserved being killed with one. It stood to reason that whatever ordeals occurred in here would be closely connected to the weapon's use. If he could survive them, if it was possible to complete the process without Force powers - or perhaps with Vader handling the Force parts - then this might turn into a good day after all. Even just watching Vader complete the process would be a good day.

It was possible that the temple had let Tarkin in by accident, mistaking him for a Sith without checking his M-count or asking him to demonstrate any Force use. It was possible, as Vader said, that it was malfunctioning or poorly designed. After six thousand years under ice, it would be more astonishing if the temple _hadn't_ malfunctioned in some way. But Vader had said he could not sense a malfunction. It was very possible that this wasn't one. That this temple, unlike other Sith temples, was deliberately built to allow pairs containing fewer than two Force users. Which meant it was possible, however unlikely, for a non-Force-user to survive.

The Sith Empire, after all, had contained thousands of Sith - but also millions of their subjects. Perhaps all those other, non-Force-sensitive people had worshiped the Dark Side in their own ways. Perhaps they'd even used its machineries. The Death Star, for instance, would be powered by Force-rich kyber crystals, and if Krennic ever finished building it, it would be fully operable by non-Force-users. Perhaps the ancient Sith Empire had things like that, too. Palpatine and Vader were splendidly powerful on their own, but they still needed people like Tarkin to assist them. The Sith Empire would have had more Palpatines, more Vaders, and correspondingly fewer Tarkins, but perhaps not zero.

The corridors were sufficiently quiet that Tarkin could hear his own breath and his heartbeat, under the rhythmic clicks of his boots against the floor. The route frequently zigzagged in strange patterns, but did not branch. So it was a unicursal labyrinth: Tarkin had encountered cultures that used such twisting paths for meditative purposes. In the distance, now and again, he could also hear rumblings, as though distant parts of the temple were rearranging themselves.

He could not read any of the words that lit the tunnels, which worried him. He hoped they were merely decorative words, as opposed to survival instructions.

The temple _had _waited until it had two people, though. Which meant that both he and Vader had a role to play. Perhaps, as in the classic prisoner's dilemma, they would both independently have to succeed for either one to survive. Tarkin would have to guess correctly as to what the Sith temple wanted from him, and hope meanwhile that it was something he could do without the Force. And Vader... well, Vader would need to come back to reality. To deal with the temple as it was, and not as whatever his fogged memories made it out to be.

Guilt was probably not a proper Sith emotion, but Tarkin felt a twinge of it, thinking of Vader. He wasn't at all sure whose fault the current problem was; and now that he was not at immediate risk of dying in the snow, there was more room in his mind for that question. Vader had insisted that Tarkin touch him through his armor; surely he couldn't have already been dissociating then, at the beginning. It had been something he'd genuinely wanted at first. Had he understood the risk? Had he thought that he could handle it, and that Tarkin didn't need to be informed? Or had it truly taken them both by surprise?

Tarkin had thought they were finally getting somewhere, in regards to agreeing on proper safety rules. It had taken a tremendous amount of nagging on his part and resistance on Vader's, but they'd gotten there. It had seemed reasonable. And then it had all ended up like this anyway.

What if Vader _had_ been dissociating from the beginning? What if it wasn't Tarkin's touch that started it, but something else - perhaps his earlier cold shoulder? He'd seen the way Vader suddenly folded after Tarkin refused to speak to him, kneeling in the escape pod's cramped space, calling it a punishment. Tarkin had been terribly aroused by that, yet he'd also found it eerie. He'd known it was a sign of something wrong in Vader's mind. And - he'd tried to clear things up, to reassure him that it wasn't a punishment, that Vader didn't need to submit, but he'd still more or less gone along with what Vader wanted in that state. Clearly, the reassurance hadn't worked.

What if nothing worked? If arguing with Vader's self-destructive tendencies didn't help, if carefully going along with the least destructive ones didn't, if trying to comfort him didn't, if setting firm boundaries and asking for space didn't - Tarkin honestly wasn't sure what else he could try. If Vader was so damaged that every possible strategy only hurt him more, Tarkin didn't know where that left them. Nowhere good.

Possibly, nowhere at all.

That was something to worry about later, though. Regardless of where their relationship might go from here, Tarkin's first priority was to survive. Whatever Vader was doing now, he had been intentionally placed outside of Tarkin's reach. Tarkin would simply have to do his best at his half of this adventure and to hope it was enough.

He kept walking, and soon enough the tunnel opened out into a wide crevasse. A slender walkway - scarcely two feet wide, and with nothing that remotely resembled railings - arced across it. Below that, there was only ice, and a long fall into the dark.

Tarkin found that his primary urge, in this situation, was to refuse to be intimidated. As if the Theory Of Dealing With Vader could also apply to a building. He tested the walkway with a booted foot and, finding it stable, strode across at the same pace as before. With an effort of will, he prevented himself from looking down. It wasn't so hard, really; he'd had plenty of practice in the awkward, ledge-and-catwalk parts of Star Destroyers.

Only when he was safely on the other side did he give into the temptation to glance back. He drew away, startled at what he saw: the path, only a few feet behind him, had vanished. He caught the tail end of it, the last few inches of stone receding into the vertical wall. If he'd tried to slow down and be cautious with his footing, he'd have fallen.

A test, then. But a test which, as he'd predicted, had not required skill with the Force; he'd only had to be confident. If only all the ways of acting like a Sith were so simple.

He turned and strode ahead again, quickening his pace.

After only a few more turns he emerged into a larger, many-sided room. It was even dimmer than the rest of the tunnels, the luminous words having been confined only to a few small patches on the ceiling. The walls were taken up with a radial pattern of alcoves, each containing only a vertical, reflective slab. Mirrors, perhaps, though Tarkin would have to look closer to be sure.

Before he could do that, he nearly tripped over a corpse on the floor in front of him.

He paused, reorienting himself, and then crouched to examine it. It was a child's body, a Twi'lek girl perhaps fourteen years old. She was very plainly dead, with the stiffened sheen of a corpse perhaps a day or two gone. The smell was not yet very bad. She was wearing a thick coat, hat, and gloves; unlike some, she'd come to this temple outfitted in proper cold-weather gear. What little skin he could see on her face was marred by the branching scars of an electrical burn, as if she'd been lightning-struck. The coat, too, was burned in a similar pattern.

There was another test in this room, then. Assuming she was real - assuming it wasn't simply a part of the test - then this girl had come in here a day or two ago, attempted the test, and failed.

That explained some of what Vader had observed. Pirates had discovered this temple, and presumably two of them had come in - thus triggering Palpatine's faint premonition that they'd somehow laid their hands on a weapon. The girl had made it far enough that the temple had begun to function; it had raised that storm in preparation for whatever came next. And then she'd made some small misstep, and the temple had killed her. Following which, it must have gone into a kind of standby mode, opening its door again, maintaining the storm. Waiting for the next pair to enter, so as to finish the job.

That meant another pirate must have also come in here with her. Was that person, perhaps, still alive?

Not for long, if Tarkin had anything to do with it. He_ dearly_ itched to destroy some pirates today.

But there had been so many pirates assembled near this moon. And, given the choice of any two of their personnel to enter here - the boldest fighters, the quickest thinkers, and so on - they'd picked this fragile-looking alien girl. Why? Did she possess some special skill, or was she merely expendable?

He gave the child's body a last once-over. He was briefly tempted to loot her cold-weather gear - it wasn't as though she had any further use for it - but it wouldn't have fit him. Nor could he do anything respectful for the body; he wasn't about to drag it with him through whatever remained of this maze. He straightened, and stepped forward to more closely examine the rest of the room.

A light in one of the alcoves blinked on. A single bright, white column, illuminating only the single alcove and its mirrorlike slab, but nothing else. Tarkin briefly blinked his eyes shut against the glow.

The slab wasn't really a mirror, though; he saw that as he cautiously approached. It reflected him only in a dull, casual way, like the durasteel of a polished machine. For the most part its surface was a harsh gray-white. More of those odd, foreign letters had been scrawled on its surface in a murky dark red color, like blood half-dried. These ones looked like a full sentence.

Tarkin looked up at the ceiling and cleared his throat. "I can't actually read that, you know."

He only half-expected the temple to be able to hear him, much less understand his words or perceptibly respond. He was mildly surprised when, after a pause, the letters swirled and reformed.

**Who are you?** they said.

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. "You can hear me, then."

The light switched off. A different light, in an alcove halfway around the room, switched on, and Tarkin swiveled to face it. **Yes.**

"And you can communicate in a language I speak when prompted. That's curious; I assumed you'd been buried under ice the last several thousand years. When did you learn Basic?"

Another switch, to an alcove at his right. **I have been scanning you since you arrived.**

"Then you know who I am," Tarkin countered.

Scanning - that was a curious verb. Vader wouldn't have been able to learn someone's written language with the Force, even by mind-probing them. So in some ways the temple, perhaps, had gone deeper than that. And yet Tarkin hadn't felt any intrusion, nor pain.

This was very interesting. Tarkin would have questioned much further, taken the temple apart to see how it ticked, if he'd had the time and the resources.

The temple forced him to keep turning around: pointing him, with those white spotlights, to one alcove after another, switching again with each curt sentence. **You and Darth Vader, yes.** Switch. **I now know you both.** Another switch. **Are you his, or is he yours?**

This last one lingered, the light continuing to shine on it. This was another test, Tarkin suspected: maybe Vader was being asked the same questions, just to see if the answers matched.

He had an unhelpful urge to say: _Both, actually. It's at least an attempt at an equitable relationship, although that's difficult at times given our respective job positions and Vader's general lack of equals, and of course a kink dynamic can temporarily supersede it._ To ramble like that. Come to think of it, maybe the power issue was closer to the heart of this than he'd thought. Vader switched so erratically between extremes, violently ordering Tarkin around one moment, and eerily offering himself up in the next. Maybe Vader simply couldn't parse a relationship in which there was no master.

But Palpatine had already dictated to them, as a Sith master, which answer to this question was acceptable. Even if Tarkin chose to deviate from that answer, Vader wouldn't.

"I'm his," Tarkin replied, standing straight. "In a manner of speaking."

The light winked out, and another winked on. **Does he value you?**

"Yes."

The room went entirely dark.

Tarkin stood still, controlling himself. He would not assume that he had somehow displeased the temple. Sith worshiped the Dark Side, after all. Maybe being plunged into darkness signified success.

"You're a Sith temple," he said conversationally, mostly to occupy his mind. "That must be a strange form of existence. How long have you been buried here without visitors?"

**I am dormant when not in use,** said the temple, flicking another light on. **It has been several thousand years.** Switch. **But sleeping has not troubled me.**

So Tarkin could induce the temple to speak. Even to make disclosures about itself. He pressed on, curious what sort of information he could extract. "And you're also a weapon, or so I'm told. What sort of weapon are you, precisely? What sort of targets can you affect, and in what ways? You started by raising that blizzard outside. Do your full abilities also have to do with cold? With storms? Or is that merely a side effect?"

**Two questions is enough,** said the temple.

Tarkin frowned, mildly chagrined; if he'd known there was a limit, he would have chosen his words much more carefully.

But he wouldn't allow the temple to make him _apologize, _nor would he stand quietly like a chastened student while it made up its mind about him. Neither of those things were the Sith way.

"Then I won't question you any further," he said to the air generally. "But allow me instead to make statements. I'm not Force-sensitive. If you've scanned me, you're already aware of that. I entered here more or less by accident, with no sacrilege intended. I don't know precisely what your rites entail, and I'd have been happy to stay out of them, given the choice. But you've clearly decided to make me a part of them. Therefore, I intend to be worthy of you. I intend to pass your tests. I intend to survive. You might know that I delight in unusual weapons, and I intend to use you as you deserve to be used. For the glory of the present Empire and the destruction of its enemies. And if you capriciously do harm to me or Lord Vader when we've followed your rules to the best of our understanding, then I fully intend to bomb you from orbit later."

There was a pause, long enough for him to wonder if he'd been too bold - but for Sith Lords, was there any such thing?

Then a panel, directly behind him, lit up again. **You will make use of me if you prove worthy.**

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. The pronoun the temple had chosen, in Basic, was the singular. "Just me? What about Lord Vader?"

**You have your roles, **it said, switching alcoves again with each complete sentence. **One directs and one acts. You belong to him. That is the way.**

Oh. Like Vader and Palpatine, one ruling from the shadows while the other rampaged across the stars. So, when it asked _are you his, or is he yours?_ the temple hadn't only been checking to see if they agreed; it had been assigning them their duties.

Before Tarkin could respond, there was another abrupt shift in the light. The alcove now lit was one that hadn't had words in it before - at least, he thought not; all the turning around had made it difficult to remember his bearings - and its light was again blood-red, like the lights in the corridors, but brighter, spotlighting the red mirror beneath it.

The words arranging themselves on the mirror were harder to make out in this light, and there were more of them, concentrated into a whole paragraph. Tarkin drew closer, watching his step, squinting at the dark-red, angular letters on the bright red background.

**This is the only time, **said the temple, **that I will identify the test for you in advance, or inform you of how to succeed. Place your hand on this mirror. It will hurt. A timer will appear. Do not pull your hand away, no matter what occurs, until the timer reaches zero.**

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. The Sith drew power from pain, of course; even a non-Force-user among them would need to know how to endure it for a purpose. His experience taking pain from Vader might be an advantage here, but there was a good chance that this pain would be worse than that, and not of a type he enjoyed.

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Tarkin reached out his hand and placed it, palm flat, on the mirror's surface.

Pain immediately coursed through his hand and up his arm, and he gritted his teeth, staying still. A timer appeared on the red glass, as promised, counting down from **00:30**, once per second. Thirty seconds of pain. Tarkin could handle that.

The pain was a deep, burning variety, and it spread quickly through his whole body, through the muscles, down to the bones. He stood firm. This wasn't a kind of pain Tarkin enjoyed, especially when it was delivered like this, without any of the more interesting trappings of a kink scene. But he'd had worse. He'd endured scenes with Vader that had half-convinced him he was dying, his body being torn apart. He'd had actual life-threatening injuries before, and had fortunately recovered. He could endure this. It would only take a few deep breaths and some effort of will.

The timer paused at **00:15** for what felt like more than a full second, and then began to tick back up.

Tarkin narrowed his eyes at it, irate. He would assume for now that, rather than a malfunction, this was another part of the test: toying with him, making him angry, to see if he could be swayed from his purpose. He took another deep breath. The timer reached **00:20**, and then ticked back down again.

It continued like that. The pain remained, steady, oppressive. He breathed through it. The timer played games, ticking up and down, occasionally flipping to a different, absurdly large number for a moment, before returning to something like **00:09**. At **00:08**, it swam and resolved into a bizarre symbol, one without any meaning Tarkin recognized, before gradually transforming back into an **00:06**.

But he noted that every time the timer teased him, every time it found some new way to extend his torment, it eventually resolved back to a lower number than before.

He held on, breathing through clenched teeth. His arm was beginning to shake slightly. Finally the timer reached **00:01.**

And stopped.

Tarkin took two more slow, shaking breaths. Three.

New, small, dense words appeared on the red mirror's surface, at the same time that the timer reluctantly ticked over to **00:00.**

**You have passed this test,** said the mirror. **You will be safe if you let go now. But if you can hold on ten seconds longer, you will have a reward.**

"What reward?" said Tarkin, careful to keep his voice level and unshaking.

The timer turned back to **00:10, **and began counting down. The pain blasted through his hand to an entire new level of intensity.

**You came in with this man you call Vader, **said the mirror. **The two of you must work together flawlessly if you are to succeed. I have thoroughly scanned you both. If you hold on, you may ask a single question about him, no matter how personal or strange, and the mirror will show you an answer.**

Tarkin's limbs were truly shaking now; he heard a piteous groan escape his jaw. It took real effort to keep his hand where it was, rather than obey his screaming instincts and jerk it away. He could endure this, he thought, for ten seconds, but not much longer. If the timer started wobbling up and down again, he might give up and pull away.

What would he ask about Vader if he could? Just one question, when his mind burned with so many. He wanted to know what in the galaxy had happened in that escape pod; what awful thing, exactly, Vader had been flashing back to, and how many mines like that still waited in the unexplored territories of his senses. He wanted to know if Vader was in his right mind yet, and how that would affect their trials in the temple; or, conversely, how it could be compensated for. He wanted to know how it was possible to be intimate with Vader safely. For a long time he'd thought of that in terms of his own safety - how he could navigate their encounters without being killed - but it was increasingly clear that Vader's life and health were also at risk. He wanted to know if it would ever be possible to hold Vader's body in his arms, skin pressed to skin, the way they'd talked about so longingly last night. If, conversely, Vader would ever again be satisfied without it. Tarkin wanted to know what to _do._

It was difficult, trying to formulate a question that encapsulated all this, while his body screamed with pain. Let alone trying to do it in a mere ten seconds. His mind raced, turning over potential phrasing after phrasing.

**00:00,** said the mirror. **Ask now. Do not remove your hand.**

And what Tarkin heard escaping from his clenched jaw was a plaintive, "How do I fix him?"

The pain vanished.

The writing vanished.

The red vanished.

The mirror was bright white, brighter than any of the lights before it. A searing white, and it sucked him in, erasing his awareness of his body, in favor of a brief and overwhelming barrage of images.

A child in chains, the metal searing his skin in the hot desert sun. A child beaten. A child, newly alone in the darkness of space, calling for his mother.

A flash of lightsabers; no, a thousand flashes of lightsabers, a piling-up of violence and grief that went by too quickly for Tarkin to make any sense of it. More children, running, crying. A burst of heat and flame; the lava planet; someone's face, screaming on the ashen ground, as his clothes and hair caught fire. The Emperor's hand on his oozing flesh. Medical instruments, unanesthetized, piercing through him. Another incomprehensible barrage of anguish and death, worse than the first. The Emperor's hand again, crackling like lightning. Ice like a vise around a pair of lungs. And Tarkin-

Tarkin's Imperial boot coming down, again and again, on Vader's masked face.

With a snap, the vision was over. He was back in his body in the now nearly pitch-dark room, stumbling away from the mirror. Blinking hard against the darkness. Trying, vainly at first, to catch his breath.

The images had come one after another so fast, he wasn't sure he could hold them all in his head, let alone interpret them correctly. He was overwhelmed. Was this what having Force visions felt like to actual Sith Lords? He didn't see the appeal.

Vader had been hurt a great deal in the past. That much, Tarkin had already begun to suspect. The vision had merely illustrated it viscerally. It was not otherwise a large surprise.

But that part at the end, with the boots. Was it true? Tarkin had been trying so hard to be otherwise. To offer good things, pleasure and affection and connection, things that Vader clearly needed after eighteen years starved of them. To try to help him, even, in the ways that were available. Was all that a delusion? Had he really only used Vader for his own fulfillment, asking things of him that his emotional limitations could not allow; becoming simply one more in the long chain of people, grinding the man Vader had once been underfoot?

He couldn't be. That didn't make any sense; it wasn't even an answer to the question he'd asked. If Tarkin's actions were unwittingly hurting Vader, then the answer to _How do I fix him?_ would be, in part, _Stop doing those things._ But the vision hadn't been specific enough as to Tarkin's actions to be usefully interpretable that way, unless it wanted him to leave altogether. And _Leave him_ wasn't a logical answer either - it might well be the best advice for other reasons, but it wasn't an answer to the question that had actually been asked, not when Vader feared abandonment so strongly.

He had asked, _How do I fix him?_ and the temple had said, perhaps, _You can't. His damage long predates you, and you'll only make it worse the more you try._

That, at least, would be a logical answer. Grim, but intelligible. And it situated Tarkin's misdeeds more in a possible future than in the present, which was comforting.

There was one other possible answer that Tarkin could think of, and it was, perhaps, even grimmer.

In his rush to answer and his haze of pain, Tarkin had forgotten one of the subtler rules of interrogation. A subject's answer to any given question depended not only on what they knew, and their incentives for disclosing it; but also on what sort of person they were.  The temple had not promised to provide  _the_ answer, nor even a correct one. It had promised  _an_ answer. That, in his pain, had temporarily slipped past him as well.

The Sith drew power from pain. If Darth Vader's life was an entire montage of nothing but pain, then this made him more suitable for his role. More capable of doing what had to be done.

Tarkin had forgotten to take into account where he was. He had brazenly stood in the heart of a Sith temple, imagining it to be objective, and he'd asked, _How do I fix Darth Vader?_

And the Dark Side itself had answered, _Don't._

*

When the ray shield sprang into place between him and Tarkin, it surprised Vader. He pushed against it with the Force, seeking some catch or power source hidden in the rock, but without success. Vader could bend or shatter many materials with sufficient strength of rage, but this temple had been built with Sith Lords in mind. Foot-thick walls of solid stone, and the ancient mechanisms nestled securely within them, were impervious even to Vader's abilities.

He was incredibly angry. He was also dizzy and ill, oddly cold, having a very bad pain day, and craving his meds, which were definitely not here. The temple had a very strong Force aura from the inside, a presence that howled and screeched in his mind. Vader's memory of the past several hours was still very patchy. He was aware of what was going on around him, but he couldn't really concentrate except by drawing on his rage. Fortunately, there was a lot of that right now.

He did not know what lay ahead; every Sith temple was different. But he knew that it would not be pleasant, and that it was not meant for Tarkin.

There were parts of Vader's life that Tarkin understood, like hunting Rebels. There were things, like the lava fortress, which he could partly grasp. This temple was neither of those. It was blasphemy for him to even be here. It wasn't something Tarkin had been meant to see. It was _not for him._

But it had been Vader who'd forced Tarkin to choose between desecrating the temple and dying in the cold. He didn't remember, but he could feel that fact in Tarkin's mind. He'd - done something, had some sort of episode, and destroyed the only other shelter either of them had.

Vader had been afraid all along that he'd do some irrevocable harm to Tarkin. Today might be that day.

All the more reason to gather his anger, then. At himself, at this temple, at the continued dizzy ache of his body, at Palpatine, at the snow. He would draw on it, burn at his darkest and most powerful, for whatever lay ahead.

A door rumbled open, little more than a slab rising into the stone. The corridor behind it howled even louder than the entrance room.

He knew very well that the temple wanted him to walk through. He could feel power gathered and coiled, power to test and prepare those who entered, power to harness the storm for purest destruction, if the right people held its helm. He knew that the temple could see and hear him - he felt it examining him, even now.

So Vader stood exactly where he was.

"I did not consent to begin your rituals," he said to the air. "That man who entered with me is not a Sith. He is mine, and you have broken Sith law by admitting him. Give him back to me or be destroyed."

He could feel the temple's attention on him, closer than before. Sith temples' minds were not like other minds. The temple could see and feel his mind in minute detail, as if it was examining his surface with a million microscopes, from every conceivable angle. It felt violating, but not the way a mind probe did; not like having his head cut open or anything pulled from it. More like someone, very large and close, undressing him with their eyes.

At last the feeling withdrew slightly, and Vader heard a gentle, familiar voice behind him. "You know that's not how I work, Ani."

It was Padmé's voice.

Vader felt his fists, his shoulders, go rigid; it sent jolts of cramping pain through his muscles, and he had to force himself to unclench.

This was not the first time something like this had happened. On the rare occasions when Vader conversed with some manifestation of the Dark Side, it was usually through an abstract, barely-animate persona. His lava river, usually. Or the void of space. But in temples such as this, or in the most deeply hallucinatory rituals, the Dark Side sometimes manifested to him as a person. Choosing the face of someone he remembered and missed, or someone who he wanted to forget. Padmé wasn't the worst of those, but she was up there.

He did not turn.

"That," he gritted out, "is not my name."

He heard the slightest rustle; Padmé shifting behind him. She was still maybe five, ten feet away. "You both wanted to find the weapon, remember? Tarkin didn't know I was a temple, but he wanted to use me for my purpose, and he wanted to enter. You wanted those things, too. You say he's yours, and now you're both here. That's enough for me. I've been a Sith temple about seven thousand years longer than you've been a Sith Lord. Maybe I'm not breaking Sith law; maybe you've only forgotten it." Something pensive crept into her voice, something very much like the shadow of loss. "Are there really only two of you now? It seems as though a lot has been forgotten."

Vader clenched and unclenched his fist again, dizzy. He wished it was easier to think clearly. There was at least one flaw in her logic: Tarkin had only wanted to enter the temple because of what Vader did to him. Before that, he'd wanted to stay with the pod. He'd said that even as he entered. But Vader couldn't remember firsthand _what _he'd done to Tarkin, or why he'd done it, and he didn't know how to explain.

"You wanted to do this with someone else," Padmé said, with the gentle curiosity that the Dark Side only used when it knew gentleness would hurt, like knives underneath Vader's skin. "Didn't you?"

He tried to remember. Of his walk here through the snow, he only remembered snatches. Of the _Overseer_ and the escape pod, he remembered more, but not enough. He had wanted Palpatine to be here. That was the proper configuration for exploring a Sith temple: a master and apprentice. Or, if Palpatine was busy, one of the Inquisitors would do. But he couldn't remember any of those people being on the _Overseer_. He couldn't remember any specific plans that involved them arriving; only a vague Force feeling that the right person would. It didn't make sense.

"I think you're a little confused. I can help with that. Would you turn around for me, Ani? Please?"

Hating himself, hating the entire Dark Side for its twisted sense of humor, Vader turned.

The thing about the Dark Side manifesting with Padmé's face was that it rarely bothered getting the details right. In early visions, a few times, it had tried to make him believe he was really speaking to her. But it had sunk in, soon enough, that nothing that looked like Padmé could ever be Padmé again. She'd been dead for so long now, even Darth Plagueis's tricks couldn't have done anything about it.

To the Sith, there was no life after death. When a person died, the energies of their mind flowed formlessly away, merging with the larger Force that surrounded them. To the Jedi, who had such a fetish for selflessness and oneness with the universe, that was a kind of immortality. But the Sith believed in the particulars of the individual, and death meant the annihilation of those things. The energies that had once been Padmé still existed; they were distributed throughout the universe now; but that wasn't a comfort to know, any more than knowing that her body was worm food. They weren't in a shape that meant anything. They weren't in a shape that meant _her._ And what Vader saw in his visions wasn't those energies anyway. Just a copy. Like a painting of her, crafted out of his own memories.

Once Vader understood that, the Dark Side had stopped trying to fool him. It had decided it was more amused by giving him versions of Padmé that were just slightly off. A Padmé whose eyes didn't quite focus, or whose proportions were wrong. And who spoke to him all the while in that familiar voice, as though nothing was the matter.

The Padmé who stood before him now looked mostly like Padmé. Parts of her face, when he wasn't looking directly at them, would fade to blank white, like that part of the painting had yet to be drawn; or to the strange complex gray of a machine. When his gaze darted to those colors, they vanished and turned back to normal-looking flesh, like an optical illusion. She wore, not the paint of a queen, but the subtler makeup she'd favored as a senator. Her hair was up in one of the elaborate headdresses she'd liked, a twisting shape that rose above her head only for the soft brown ends of it to fall back down again around her face, fountainlike, entwined with black gems and orange ribbon.

Her dress was that same mix of colors, only it wasn't quite a dress. When he looked closely, he could see that it was an elaborate layered concoction of flame-colored gauze and gray-black tulle, intricately stitched to give the illusion of something flowing; but if he looked at her face, the dress became a river of burning rock. He could not help but see actual lava, clinging revealingly under her collarbones, pouring out into a skirt that hissed and bubbled as it trailed on the stones behind her. It did not burn her, but it dripped down her arms from the shoulders down, threatening to destroy whatever she might carelessly touch.

She wore that charm he remembered, from all those years ago, around her neck. She was smiling at him, and her smile was the one he remembered, pure and loving and wise.

"There are gaps in your memory, Ani," she said, as if he didn't know. "If you want me to, I can undo that. I'd like to help you. The rites are always hard, but they don't have to be as hard as you're making them."

But Vader knew what offers of help were worth, when they came from the Dark Side.

"I do not want your help," he snarled to her, trying to ignore the way his head spun, "And I will not perform your rites. Your rites are heresies. I will find a way to undo them and retrieve what you stole, and then I will have you destroyed."

He felt the presence around him, screeching louder in his mind at this insubordination; but the vision of Padmé didn't snarl back at him. Padmé would never have. Instead she raised her eyebrows and pouted a little.

He turned on his heel, cape billowing behind him, and stormed into the howling dark.

"Good luck," she said sardonically behind him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a pirate appears; truths are revealed; performance is assessed; and Vader finally gets back into his right mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this might be the whumpiest chapter. If you needed that tw for child death last time then you're gonna need it here too, sorry.
> 
> Meanwhile: surprise, bitches, it's Hondo Ohnaka.

Vader strode through the temple's twisting halls without stopping to ask himself what he was doing. He didn't know how he might thwart this place, or the apparently heretical intelligence that lay within it, but he'd find a way. His head was spinning, but that only meant it might take longer.

There were words on the walls, lit up in red. Vader registered the meaning of some of them, but not many. Words like _connection_ and _power_ and _sacrifice_ and _ordeal,_ without larger sentences surrounding them. Or, at times, what seemed to be pithy references to ancient Sith tales: some that Vader thought he recognized, many that he didn't. There were vernacular Sith words, and Balc words, as well as words in Massassi and other slave dialects, which Vader couldn't read at all. Even in standard Sith, Vader had an easier time speaking than reading. He could have puzzled more words out if he stopped to study them, but he did not want to.

He could feel the temple's mind hovering around him, watching what he did. It was not a friendly mind; its thoughts whirled cold and flayingly like the worst of the wind outdoors. It was annoyed by his attitude, but not alarmed, or even very surprised. It was a very old temple. It had seen Sith Lords throw tantrums before.

Vader hated this temple, but if he had to deal with it, he preferred it as the alien, hostile presence he felt around him now, without the obfuscating mask of human form. He liked it better generally, when Dark Side entities manifested as a river or a storm or a void or a ravening maw, instead of pretending to be shaped like a person.

He strode over an ice crevasse without really stopping to look at it. Soon he found himself in a many-sided room, each side holding a strange reflective slab in a recessed alcoves. He paused in his stride, wondering if this room had something in it he could break. The slabs, maybe; what were they made of? It might be expensive. It might make a very satisfying snapping sound. At first glance, he didn't see another exit besides the one he'd come in by.

But there was another presence here, which the temple's overwhelming self had nearly drowned out. Not an important presence, but living and sentient, even vaguely familiar. Vader pivoted on his heel, reaching out further with his mind. It should have occurred to him before, given the temple's general behavior, that whoever had partway activated it might still be in here.

He locked on to it half a second later: a nervous movement, half-audible, in one of the darkened alcoves. A mind, repulsive in its ordinariness, trembling with fear.

Vader casually flicked a hand, and whoever it was came tumbling out of their hiding place, dragged into a heap at his feet by the Force. It was an adult male Weequay in a dirty cold-weather coat and helmet. It -

Oh.

Vader _recognized_ this pirate. It was Hondo Ohnaka. His old self had run across Hondo many times in the Clone Wars: sometimes an opponent, sometimes an unlikely ally. He was fairly sure they hadn't met since Vader's accident, but of course the old pirate would still be running around, playing whatever side seemed convenient to him at the moment.

_His_ presence here was even more blasphemous than Tarkin's. Neither of them were Sith, but at least Tarkin was loyal to Vader's side, and had a healthy respect for what he was getting into.

Hondo didn't recognize him, of course. And his presence didn't answer any of the questions on Vader's mind. It didn't even answer the question of who the pirates were. Hondo Ohnaka, at a given time, could be working for anyone or no one. The stink of crime and chaos was all over him. And another stink, even stronger. Something very close to, but not entirely, madness.

Hondo looked up at Vader and started to giggle, high-pitched, uncontrollably. "That is a good one!" he called out in his accented voice, not entirely in Vader's direction. "You are outdoing yourself, my friend! I could not imagine a scarier hallucination to have if I - well, that's a lie. I can. But I'm not going to tell it to you, you understand. This is very good! Keep trying!"

He was addressing the temple itself. He thought Vader was merely a vision. One among an increasingly distressing series of them, it seemed.

"Why are you here?" Vader asked. All Vader really wanted to know was how to free himself from the temple and make it give back Tarkin. But the pirate might know other useful things. Things like who the other pirates were, how they had discovered this temple, where it fit into their operations, what they knew about it.

"Now, now," said Hondo, wagging a finger. "You have asked me entirely too many questions already for me to answer without something in exchange. Why don't-"

"I have no time for games," Vader interrupted. He flicked a hand and pulled open the pirate's mind. It was far too easy; Hondo had been in here at least a day already, weakened from fear and exhaustion and thirst. Vader pushed his meager defenses aside and reached in, and-

*

The temple lay half-buried in the sparkling winter sun. Its door, heavy black stone, remained resolutely shut. The team had told Hondo they'd tried everything short of heavy explosives. They'd carefully scraped away the snow and ice, exposing the full outline of the doorway. They had a whole set of scaffolds and shovels for this work, and a set of low shelters nearby, all of appropriately piratical designs - not in the sense of looking _good_ like a pirate, no, this team wasn't talented at all in that way, but in the sense of being portable and hard to see from orbit. From what he'd been told, they'd been raiding the nearby settlements to provision this site. A risky tactic, given how fiercely the Empire guarded this system.

The little Twi'lek girl in her snowsuit frowned at them all thoughtfully, and the team leaders' eyes swiveled towards her, intrigued or amused. They'd been briefed, but, well, that hadn't exactly resolved things.

"There's too many of you," she announced without preamble. She didn't look around to see who was watching her. Just _knew._ She was the real thing, this girl. A big risk, showing her abilities to this many people, and she knew it.

Hondo liked the ones who took risks.

"Too many?" replied the team boss, a big gruff Nikto.

"Too many. Clear all of this out." She closed her eyes, as if sniffing the air, feeling something beyond everyone else's grasp. "It only wants two of us. Me and-" She paused, then abruptly opened her eyes again, swiveling her head to look straight at Hondo. "Him."

Hondo didn't have any wild crazy magic abilities, but he could read people pretty well. He knew it had been _her,_ not the Force, who chose that last part. This girl might carry herself with authority but she was a child where it counted; asked to choose a companion for herself, she'd picked him, untrustworthy as she knew he was. The Force might have told her who here was well suited for the temple task and who was not; but, rather than trust a stranger, she wanted the devil she knew.

At least this might be profitable if they succeeded; even aside from the girl's other wild promises, this temple might be full of all sorts of treasures-

*

(A mind probe hurt the recipient most; but it wasn't pleasant for Vader, either. A mind probe meant diving into the depths of a stranger, immersing in who they were and what it was like to be them. Getting covered in them, as with the gore of a slaughtered beast. There was also some pain-sharing, but it was not as intense as the pain-sharing Vader did with his lovers; he could comfortably ignore it. The collapse of mental boundaries was the part that bothered him.

It wasn't a technique he'd have reached for so quickly, except that Vader was sick of not understanding what the fuck was going on and why the temple was behaving this way. He was in the mood to push and push, by the most direct routes he could think of, until he had answers.)

*

The girl had come tumbling out of a storage container in Hondo's hold, gasping for breath. He'd taken a small step back, only mildly alarmed: he'd had stowaways before. He'd met younger and more desperate-looking stowaways than this one, though she was young, and looked as though she hadn't eaten in a week. Fourteen, maybe. Shabbily dressed. If he didn't miss his guess, she'd been on the run for a while.

You had to be careful with those ones. New runaways were easy pickings; they'd believe anything you said. The ones who'd been around a while, who'd tangled with smugglers before and survived, those ones could see right through you.

"Well!" he said cheerfully. "If it isn't a passenger! I thought I'd seen some unexpected life form readings in that crate of death sticks. Those are no good for you, you know. An extremely bad life choice. You haven't been getting into them, have you?"

The girl swayed to her feet and brushed herself off. She didn't look intoxicated, only exhausted and hungry, but he'd need to check the cargo carefully to make sure. Her eyes warily followed his as he glanced into the crate; the transparisteel cases housing the sticks had been jostled, but they didn't look broken into. "Just passing through. You're a smuggler, right?"

"A smuggler! Why, I've never been so offended in my life! A smuggler! Me! Those death sticks are legitimate business commodities which I happen not to have announced to the authorities. You, though." He wagged a finger. "You are a smuggler, smuggling yourself onto my ship. Now, who are you, exactly?"

She stood up to her full, not-very-impressive height and waved her hand in front of him. "My name is Neeva. You will take me to the Rebel Alliance."

And Hondo, for a moment, felt something strange. A tug on his intentions. What a good idea, taking this girl to the Rebels. That would be nice-

He snapped out of it, though.

"What makes you think I even know about the Rebels?" he demanded. "And that I'd take you to them just because you said so. Faugh! You haven't even offered me any payment. I'm very mercenary, you know."

"You've worked with the Rebels," she insisted. "I can feel it."

"Eh," he said. "The Rebels sometimes. The Empire sometimes. Sometimes other legitimate business interests. And sometimes myself! I am a freelancer these days."

The girl waved her hand again, frustrated. "You _will_ take me-"

"Ah-ah-ah. Payment." Hondo took a step back; he'd worked with Jedi before. He was fairly sure he understood what was happening here, and it unnerved him. "I take passengers for the right price, but only when they're good listeners. You are not displaying good listening skills. I'm going to let you think about that a while, and we'll negotiate again tomorrow, mm?"

He locked her in the cargo hold the rest of the night. He had one of his crew deliver some food and some water, though. And a blanket. Hondo wasn't a monster.

*

(There was a surfeit of young, confused Force-sensitives in the galaxy, most of them in hiding, or running as this girl had been. Driven to wild risks like these, lives of crime or worse. Vader was the reason why they lived that way, instead of being safe with their families or teachers. It was his least favorite duty, of all those Palpatine had granted to him, but an important one. It was his job - alone or, more often, by directing the Inquisitors - to scour the galaxy. Not only of threats to the Sith, but of anyone, however small, who could grow up to be one.

That first awful day, when Vader took his name, Palpatine had given him this duty before anything else. He'd sent Vader to kill all the Jedi younglings, knowing that would be the quickest way to break him. You couldn't come back after an act like that. You couldn't keep being the person you were.

He'd braced himself and done it anyway, sick with rage, believing this would be the worst of it. He'd do this one, awful thing, and then he'd have what he wanted, he'd have saved who mattered most, he wouldn't need Palpatine anymore after this. Vader had still been trying to believe that, back then.

He hadn't understood, that first day, that he would need to keep on killing children forever.)

*

"She wanted me to take her to the Rebels," Hondo explained, hands raised quizzically in the air, to the leader of Crimson Dawn. "But she didn't have any money. And I was already on my way to you with the death sticks. I thought perhaps this might be a way to clear our debts, eh? She's yours, if you can pay."

And by _pay_ he meant forgive the tens of thousands of credits he owed her after the disaster of his last mission. A Force-sensitive captive, what a rarity - there had been buyers during the Clone Wars who would have paid at least that much, and now that the supply was depleted, well...

They were in the private sitting room aboard Qi'ra's yacht, and he was sitting on the low, curved couch across from her, while Neeva stood at the side, her hands held before her in a pair of energy cuffs, next to the pile of boxes of death sticks. Qi'ra herself was an elegant human woman in her thirties, dressed in something expensive and form-fitting, sipping a golden drink from a fluted glass. Some crime lords lived in flamboyantly lowbrow squalor; Hondo preferred that approach himself, actually; but Crimson Dawn did things with style.

"I admire your resourcefulness," she said, taking another small sip. "But it seems to me what you're offering is a very expensive liability. If she is what you say she is, the red blades are already trying to hunt her down. Anyone who harbors her will be considered complicit. I don't want that kind of interference into my business. Neither will most potential buyers, if you're offering her as slave. And I have no proof that she even _is_ what you say."

"Proof?" came Neeva's voice scornfully from the side of the room, and suddenly everything was rushing upwards. Several very expensive knickknacks whirled off of a polished countertop and spun towards the ceiling; the crates of death sticks rose and hovered several feet in the air. "I _am_ a Jedi. And I'm not a slave. And I'm _in the room._"

Hondo startled backwards a bit, but of course Qi'ra was too classy. She quirked an eyebrow in the girl's direction, and gave the tiniest smile. Neeva had her attention now.

"If you were a slave, you'd be worth money," she explained. "If you're proposing to join us in some other capacity, you could be worth... more. Perhaps even enough to justify the risk. But that would take a much longer negotiation. I would need to be convinced of what you have to offer. Not only raw power, but real usefulness. Insight. Quick learning." She gracefully held out the hand that wasn't holding the wine, making a lowering gesture. "Obedience."

Gradually, the floating objects settled back to the floor. The girl returned Qi'ra's gaze intensely, rapt and wary. For a moment, Hondo was the one who wanted to say _I'm in the room._

"Good," Qi'ra said, more softly. "You understand the risk I'm taking by even entertaining this notion. You understand about the Inquisitors?"

"They killed my family," Neeva spat. "They killed all my friends on Ryloth. Of course I fucking know about them. Fuck you for asking."

Qi'ra spread her arms appealingly. "But you see my dilemma. Crimson Dawn tries not to tangle too directly with the Empire, much less this side of it."

"You could take me to the Rebels. They'll pay you a bounty for me."

Qi'ra raised an eyebrow. "Are you known to them?"

"Not yet. But they want Jedi. They _need_ Jedi. They'll pay you, believe me."

Qi'ra shook her head. "Crimson Dawn and the Rebel Alliance have a... fractious history," said Qi'ra. "And the Rebels are poor negotiation partners; they don't always want to dirty their hands. I'd rather not rock that boat if I can avoid it. I won't rule it out, but first, tell me what you could do for me. What do you have for me, or for the Rebels, besides raw untrained talent? What could you accomplish that would be great enough to justify the danger?"

Neeva closed her eyes, breathed deep. Hondo watched, fascinated. She wasn't just using the Force; there was a secret she was about to offer up, and she was checking with herself, assessing the risks one final time.

"There's a ruin," she said, her eyes still closed. "Black stone, closed door. Half-buried by the ice. You've seen it."

Qi'ra drew back just slightly, and Hondo knew the girl had hit the mark. Something about this was significant to her, and not in a good way.

"I've seen it," Neeva continued. "In my dreams. You want inside it, don't you? It won't open except for someone like me. But it wants to be opened. I can get inside."

Qi'ra took a long breath. She had the look of someone who'd dealt with Jedi before, and who had a healthy appreciation for just how complicated this might get.

"It would be an overstatement to say I _want_ inside it," she said, very carefully. "There was an old mentor of mine who had an interest in ancient temples. Linked to the Jedi or... otherwise. He gave me the coordinates for that site. He wanted to investigate it himself, as he had with certain other sites, but he had other matters to attend to. He flew away to attend to them and never returned. I didn't like it; it was in a territory we've historically avoided, and there was no guarantee there would be anything valuable inside, even if we could break in. But I sent one of my lieutenants there with his raiding team to investigate, in case my mentor came back. According to the lieutenant's last report, the temple is impenetrable, and its door won't open. I was about to recall him and assign his team to something else."

"Send me to him," Neeva replied, with a steadiness that belied the way her hands trembled in their cuffs.

Qi'ra frowned slightly, looking the girl up and down. "That you've told me this implies you think there's something in there that I'll value. You knew that I'd recognize the site from your description. But you didn't mention it to me immediately, even though Crimson Dawn were the ones doing the excavation. You wanted to pass us by and tell the Rebels instead. Why?"

Neeva raised her chin. "Because it's not only things you can sell for money. There's a weapon. A kind you've never seen before. If I get in before someone else does, I could end the threat for everyone. I could kill them all. The red blades _and_ their masters." There was an intensity in her eyes that made Hondo want to draw back; he was too proud, of course, to do any such thing. Her gaze burned straight through Qi'ra, even through the wall behind her. "I could end the Empire."

*

(Vader liked this girl, despite himself. She certainly wasn't a Jedi. She didn't know it yet, but if the Sith temple called to her so powerfully, if she was so taken with the idea of killing everyone who'd hurt her, then she was strong not only in the Force but in the Dark Side.

Sometimes the Inquisitors let those ones live. Sometimes, if they could be given to the Nursemaids and broken into obedience, they became Inquisitors themselves.

Which. Well.

It was better than dying. Sort of.)

*

The temple door slammed shut behind Hondo and Neeva as soon as they entered.

Hondo's eyes had not yet adjusted to the reddish dark. But something hovered uneasily in his peripheral vision. Or was it hearing? A sound like a whisper of wind, or a sight like a current in the air. He couldn't quite focus on it, but it wasn't good.

Hondo wasn't Force-sensitive, not in any useful way. He couldn't read minds. He couldn't move things around telekinetically. (Oh, the things he would have done if he'd been born with that ability. So many vaults robbed, so many casinos cheated out of their money. So many interesting and attractive people, mind-tricked into doing whatever amusement Hondo wanted. The Jedi of old had wasted that ability, thinking only of politics and war. They'd been useful people, though, loyal and reliable when it counted. He'd liked them.)

But Hondo had heard once that everyone was connected to the Force just a little bit, even if they didn't have enough of it to wield a lightsaber. It was more of a continuum than a binary. And Hondo had noticed over the years that he was a little luckier than other people. He got away with more. He had hunches, sometimes, and they more often than not paid off.

Right now Hondo's hunches were telling him to get the hell out of this building.

"So!" he said, forcing cheerfulness to mask his fear. "What exactly happens now? Where are the treasure-y bits? Because so far I see a distinct lack of-"

The ray shield snapped into place between them, and the words died on his lips. Instead he said a number of other words, in Weequay, that could have set fire to any unattended drinks.

*

**Are you hers, **said the blood-dark writing on those strange reflective slabs, **or is she yours?**

"Very definitely the second one," said Hondo, puffing himself up in a vain attempt to look important. "She stowed away on my ship, you know. I brought her here. I was promised a finder's fee if she could deliver on her wild claims about a temple here with the power to destroy things, and look at you, a very attractive and powerful temple! I'm sure this will all work out."

He had to turn, every time there was a new sentence, to take in the words on a different one of the slabs. They were all written in Weequay, for some reason. This certainly wasn't a Weequay temple. **Do you value her?**

Hondo barked out a laugh. "I mean, she has potential! She is a brave little girl. But we only just met a few days ago, and that issue of the finder's fee is still a very tricky one. I can't really say I-"

A sound startled him into silence. A buzz like a tremendous amount of electrical power suddenly released, somewhere else in the building. His skin prickled, and he smelled ozone.

**Then you will not care if I dispose of her, **said the temple.

"Wait!" said Hondo, leaping at the mirror. "No, that's not what I meant! That's not fair! You useless Jedi temple, she's the only Force-sensitive person here! What are you, crazy? Stop this!"

The temple didn't answer, but the electrical buzzing sound went on and on. It must have been a full minute at least, and he didn't want to think about that, about how long it ought to take to electrocute a tiny girl like Neeva.

Nothing was hurting Hondo; he didn't feel anything except his own panicked regret. Even the mirror was impervious to his scrabbling. But he found himself praying, internally, for it to end.

When it did end, the silence was somehow even worse.

**You have failed this test,** the mirror informed him. **Wait here. **As if he had a choice; the door to this many-sided room had already sealed behind him. **Your companion is dead. The next pair to enter will retrieve you and decide your fate.**

"But-" Hondo stammered, panicked past thought. "But when will that be?"

**Hours. Days. Years. Wait and see.**

He howled and scratched harder at the mirrors, but they said nothing more.

"You are a terrible Jedi temple!" he shouted, pounding on the nearest one with a fist. "I have met real Jedi, and they would be ashamed of you!"

But the only reply was darkness and silence, and the horrors that his mind began to conjure up for him, realer and realer, as the sense-deprived hours dragged by.

*

Vader withdrew.

His head was spinning worse than before; he could scarcely focus on the pirate cowering below him. Vader had the mental viscera of Hondo Ohnaka all over him: the feel of being a narcissistic small-time criminal who covered his incompetence with glib charm. A wretched fear and regret that wasn't his own. That buzz of faraway electricity, still echoing in his ears.

He wasn't sure what he'd learned. He wasn't sure why he'd started this. He'd been angry; he'd wanted something to push against, something that would snap satisfyingly when he tried to break it. He'd had no goal. He'd cracked open the pirate's mind because he could, and he'd rifled through it until he couldn't bear to anymore.

Hondo looked up at him, dazed and indignant, clutching his head. "That _hurt._ You're a hallucination; you aren't supposed to hurt. You're-" And then he stopped still, as the truth began to dawn on him. His deep-set eyes went round and wide, and his voice contracted to a squeak. "Oh. You're... not a hallucination."

He started to laugh again, even higher-pitched and more hopelessly than before.

Vader did not like that sound, so he reached out and ended it. The Force contracted in his hand, and the leathery skin of Hondo's throat drew in on itself. He gagged, clawed at himself, and slowly collapsed further to the floor. Vader waited until the pirate had reduced himself to an inoffensively limp and silent heap of limbs, splayed on the floor.

Then he walked to one of the mirror alcoves and slumped against it. He wanted the room to stop spinning and his head to stop pounding. He wanted his whole body, from lungs to his empty stomach, to stop pounding. He had lost track of what he had come here to do.

He heard the illusory swish of fabric behind him again.

"Do you understand now?" said Padmé. She was speaking Sith now, not the Basic that she'd started with in the entrance hall.

"Leave me alone," said Vader in the same language.

"It's physically impossible for me to do that right now."

Vader reached back and made another Force choking motion. It had no effect. This wasn't a human, nor any other kind of organic being; unlike him, she was really only a vision. An image that the temple played before his eyes, because the temple knew how badly it would annoy him.

"Tell me about this person who came in with you," Padmé said conversationally, after a pause. "This Tarkin. He seems interesting. How do you feel about him?"

Vader wanted to make some angry retort, but Hondo's memories were still too loud in his head. Too clear. Very suddenly, awfully, he did understand.

Vader hated this temple. He had wanted to bluster and break things until the temple gave Tarkin back. But the temple was the one who held the power here. Vader might be able to hold his own, if the temple tried to kill him. He didn't really care that much about things trying to kill him; that was a normal day of work. But if Vader put a foot wrong, if he failed some obscure test - which could be as simple as misstating a word - then Tarkin would die the way Neeva had died. The temple could do that with a thought, and there was nothing Vader would be able to do to stop it.

Hondo didn't know what Force lightning felt like. He'd had to use his imagination for that part. But Vader knew.

"I value him," he said through his teeth.

"I hope you don't mind my curiosity." Padmé's voice held no judgment, none of the kind of jealous anguish that the real Padmé would have felt, if she'd had to carry on a conversation like this with Vader about his new lover. The temple didn't care about anything like that; it had only met Vader and Tarkin for the first time today. "You and he are unusual. I've had many kinds of pairs of people come to visit me. They don't always have to be Sith Lords. But Sith don't usually bring their lovers here. Not the kind with real love. I think it's sweet."

Vader's shoulders tightened again, and he had to concentrate a moment on unclenching them, to stop the cramps that wracked his upper body. He needed his medicine. He could guess why he hadn't taken it - most escape pods didn't come stocked with Vader's kind of supplies, and he was pretty sure they'd been in there a while. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.

"I did not come here to entertain you," he said, turning to face her. She looked the same as before, her dress glowing and hissing and bubbling against the stone floor. She was an illusion, but he did not want to walk too close to where she'd stood.

"Of course you didn't," she replied softly. "You came here to do what you were called to do. That's always how it works for you. You wanted to investigate me, and you wanted to keep Tarkin out of it. To keep him safe. But you hurt him anyway. You know that. You just don't remember how."

Vader closed his eyes a moment - an action invisible behind his mask, though the temple would still notice, if it cared to - and reached out with his mind for Tarkin. It was difficult; the temple's presence was so thick and chaotic around him, and the space it filled was large. Finding anyone else in here was like looking for a womp-rat in a whirlwind. You might not see it until you were right on top of it.

Vader had an advantage, though: he already knew the feel of Tarkin's mind. If he reached, he could just make out its outlines. Tarkin was alive, and at least mostly unharmed. He felt pensive and frightened, but focused; whatever tests the temple was putting him through, it hadn't defeated him yet.

"He's doing well," Padmé informed him; his eyes snapped back open unwillingly at the sound of her voice. "Considering how little he really knows about the Sith, he's been exceptional. He might just pass all of the tests, if he has the right help. But he's not reverent enough; that's his only problem. He's trying to be respectful, but he doesn't feel it. He doesn't worship me."

Vader looked at her flatly. "Do you believe that I do?"

"Oh, come on, Ani. We're Sith. You're angry and you hate me. But we both know that anger can be sacred. You can feel just how strong I really am, and your emotions are focused on me; that's the important part. You've actually been doing pretty well. You've passed the first tests without even knowing it. But this is going to get harder for you as it goes. Let me show you something."

She glided past him to the mirror he'd been leaning on, skirting only an inch or two from his armored body. Her creepy lava dress dipped low in the back, nearly to her waist. There was nothing inviting in the way she moved, but Vader was suddenly struck with a weird, uncomfortable thought: before this was over, she might try to touch him. Brush past him, say, or bump against his shoulder. He did not want her to touch him. It would hurt, like everything else the Dark Side did. Would she glance off his armor, or go through it? Would she pass through him entirely? Would she feel like nothing more than a breath of wind?

Or maybe she'd put a hand down absently, as if to steady herself, and it would go straight through his armor and land on the flesh of his shoulder. Maybe it would feel warm and real, the way a hand would have felt on healthy skin, for half a second. Before those ribbons of lava dripped down her wrist to him, and he burned.

This vision wasn't even a person; she was whatever the temple decided she would be. He had no way to hurt her. If she did want to touch him, as a torment or for any other reason, he might not be able to stop her.

Padmé reached the mirror, giving no sign she'd noticed any of what was in his mind. She touched it, and it flared to life, glowing a bright elemental red.

"There's something I often do," she said, as calmly as if she were discussing flower arrangements. "I bring you to this room, and if you've passed the other tests, I offer you a reward. A question you can ask about the person who came in with you. But I think I'm going to do something different with you. Something simpler, if you want it. You're missing memories from this morning; you know which ones. You'll need them later. If you ask, I can give you back your truth."

The Sith language had over a dozen words for truth. The Jedi called them liars, and they did lie when it suited them. But there were also certain kinds of truth that only the Dark Side would tell. Truths that the Light Side would try to paper over, because to say them aloud would be cruel. Truths that shamed the hearer, or warned them, or broke their trust. Truths, properly placed, that would sink in their claws and give the teller control.

Padmé had used one of these words just now. She had used the word _vrajka_: a truth that a person had denied to themselves. Memories repressed through dissociation were _vrajka;_ so were personal failings the hearer had refused to admit to; griefs and longings long suppressed; the betrayals of friends to whom they'd tried to give benefit of the doubt.

Vader did not trust this temple at all. Whatever it offered would hurt. But it was a Sith temple, a sacred object using sacred words, and there were rules it could not help but obey. If it offered him _vrajka,_ it would give him _vrajka._ The memories that it returned to him would, at least, be true ones.

"Fine," he said, tensing.

Padmé made an inscrutable gesture in his direction, and he felt the temple's presence close in around him. He felt the strange poignant pain of mental walls in his head, slowly dissolving, letting the ugliness that lurked behind them bubble through.

Vader remembered how he had gotten here. He had been lost in his memory of Palpatine, and of that particular healing ritual, and he'd ended up in the snow. Walking toward the temple, not because the temple had anything to do with what triggered him, but because the temple's call was the deepest signal embedded in his brain, the only one that made sense anymore. He knew that part already; he just remembered more of it now. More of the long interval walking and hurting, the awful freezing pain in his side slowly turning to numbness. He'd been so unaware of himself, he hadn't even tried to cover his skin with a hand or a corner of his cape. Come to think of it, he was still numb there.

Before that-

Tarkin had been pressed close to him, cautious but full of desire, reaching with a tentative hand into the hole in Vader's suit. His fingertips had brushed Vader's cold skin, and Vader had felt a strange premonition, something not quite righ. He hadn't paid attention to it. If it was something wrong in Vader's body, deprived of food and medicine, then there was nothing he could do about it anyway. And if it was something wrong in Vader's mind, he didn't want to pay attention. Fuck that. Let him have this one good thing.

He'd felt the cold and the unease, but also the strange slight pain of Tarkin's touch, and the other feeling that he craved but couldn't name. The thing he felt when Tarkin's hands touched his face, when they kissed each other. Skin contact just wasn't like anything else, and he needed it so badly.

"How does that feel?" Tarkin had asked.

"Cold."

"Should I stop?"

And something in Vader's mind had pulled back, suddenly frightened. It did not usually frighten Vader when Tarkin checked in with him. That was fine, an ordinary thing. But something about being asked it here, in the pain and the cold, felt familiar. And not in a good way.

Vader hadn't fallen into his memory then. He hadn't even recognized yet what memory it was. He only knew, with a strange sick feeling, that he could not allow Tarkin to stop. Admitting he needed to stop would be failure. He would have nothing left.

"I can take it," he remembered insisting. "I want to."

It hadn't been a lie, not really. He had wanted to be touched. Still. Even then.

But he had sensed, at that point, that there was a danger here. Something had become unglued in his mind, and he needed to patch it back together, or it would get worse very fast. He knew that. It was just that stopping wasn't an option. Admitting there was something here he couldn't handle. No. He had to find another way.

"Remind me what you want of me," he'd begged. He could feel the desire in Tarkin's mind. Force help him; Tarkin even seemed to like how unbalanced he was. Seeing Vader beg felt good to him. Tarkin was the cautious one, when it came to Vader's body; surely if Tarkin liked this part, it couldn't be so bad. Vader could use Tarkin's mind to ground himself, like in the meditation chamber. It would work.

Tarkin had known the sorts of words to say. He'd done a good job. Vader had clung to those words, and for a minute, he'd managed to stay. He was here with Tarkin, in the escape pod on Hethea 1. They'd agreed to stay there and await rescue, more for Tarkin's safety than Vader's. They were only touching each other because it felt good. If it didn't feel good, they could stop-

No. They could not stop. They _could not._

It was cold, and someone's hand was on Vader's skin, and he did not know where he was. But he knew that they _could not stop._

That was what the ritual was for, after all. He had to use the cold, use the pain. Focus. There was something nagging at the edge of his senses; surely that was what he was supposed to focus on, using the pain to make his senses expand.

Vader remembered it now, being in that space, seeing Tarkin but not understanding him as Tarkin. Seeing the escape pod, but not making sense of it, because the rules being called up in his mind were from another place entirely.

He'd expanded his senses just as he'd been taught to. And there the weapon had been, patiently waiting and calling, as before. Only now Vader could see it more clearly. He could see where it was.

"It is working," he remembered saying. He had known, with panicked certainty, that the person above him _needed_ to know this. Everything would get much worse if that person did not believe it was working.

And Tarkin had drawn back. Vader, here and now, in the darkness of the mirror room, flinched at that part. He remembered what Tarkin had looked like in that moment. The naked unease on his face, the sudden alarm in his mind. Tarkin played at confidence, but he was all too aware of how much stronger Vader was, of what Vader could do to him if things went wrong.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he'd said, and Vader had-

Fuck.

_Fuck._

Vader had said, "I can handle it, master."

He'd said that _to Tarkin,_ not understanding that Tarkin wasn't Palpatine_. _And he'd watched, not comprehending anything but that his master was displeased, as Tarkin leapt away from him. He'd seen Tarkin's horror, he'd felt it, but he hadn't understood.

Sith apprentices were beholden to only one master. They were expressly forbidden from using that title for anyone else. Palpatine might punish Vader for this, even though he hadn't realized he was breaking the rule. But that wasn't what made Vader's fists and stomach clench, remembering.

Tarkin had seen him say that word. Tarkin had understood, too late, what was happening. He'd already begun to question Palpatine more than he ought to. Tarkin had seen Vader in the most abject of mental torments, to the point of losing his mind. And he'd seen Vader, in that state, call out Palpatine's name.

It was the most awful thing, past mere pain, for Vader to know he had been seen that way. It was not like being seen without his mask. It was more like someone picking though his suit's waste disposal apparatus while Vader still wore it, or peering at the slime that came out of him during an infection. Tarkin wasn't supposed to see this; it was hideous to let him see see. No one was supposed to see.

He didn't have time to process that, though, because the memory was still unspooling in his head. He'd asked for it, and it was coming to him, and he had no control over its intensity or speed.

Without Tarkin's hand on his skin, Vader had known only that he had failed. He had ended the ritual. Leaving himself with nothing sensible but the feel of the temple in his head, wanting him to go toward it. Maybe he wouldn't fail at that part. So he'd gone.

There hadn't even been enough of him left to recognize that the escape pod had a door. He'd seen a barrier in his way and disposed of it. _You destroyed the pod,_ Tarkin had confirmed for him later, and that was an accurate summary, but it hadn't conveyed the speed or the violence of it, the way the metal had come apart shrieking and sparking before him. Vader remembered it now, what that had looked like.

He had broken the pod and let the deadly blizzard swirl inside, where Tarkin stood half-clothed and terrified. And he hadn't even looked back.

And before that-

The last parts of the memory trickled in, filling in the gaps of how the early morning had stretched on before that point, before Tarkin agreed to touch him. This was subtler than the rest of the _vrajka;_ it didn't involve any outright moments of horror. He'd been in his right mind when it happened. And somehow, despite that, it hurt just as much as the rest.

Tarkin had _known_ that touching Vader would be too dangerous. He'd known that Vader was taking risks with himself that he ought not to. He'd argued against it, vigorously; he'd become so distressed that he pushed Vader away. He'd argued that Vader didn't have the right to consent to intimate acts that put his life in danger. He'd been - in this very narrow instance, in ways that neither of them anticipated - correct.

But Vader had not accepted that argument. He'd argued back using every trick at his disposal. He'd called Tarkin names. He'd denied things he knew to be true. He'd begged. He'd gotten on his fucking _knees,_ he'd craved it so bad. He hadn't cared if it was safe or not.

And Tarkin, eventually, with his defenses worn down, had given in.

Vader stumbled backwards in the darkened temple room, in the red light of that one damn mirror. His empty stomach heaved. The mirror's surface, before him, was beginning to crack.

Vader didn't _deserve_ to be touched. He'd felt he was owed it, somehow. He'd thought the only risk was to himself. But touching Vader's body was like touching a live grenade. It had nearly been Tarkin's death. Before the day was out, it might still be.

He'd asked for _vrajka,_ and the temple had given it to him. Not only his memories, but this too. He hadn't wanted to believe it, hadn't been strong enough to draw the conclusion himself. But Vader _shouldn't_ be touched, not if he wanted his lovers to live. No matter how much he wanted the feeling. Not ever again. It was his one good thing, but it wasn't for him.

Padmé was watching him with a strange expression, pitying and curious, like a girl approaching a small wounded animal. The feel of the temple, through and behind her, gave off a different emotion. Something more like Palpatine's cackling laughter. Feelings like these were sacred to the Dark Side, but the Dark Side had a strange idea of what reverence meant, and it didn't always receive its sacraments in the solemn ways an outsider would expect.

"That's... fascinating," she said. "You both fear hurting each other so badly. I knew you would, but it's stronger than I expected."

Vader looked at her. If he focused very hard on some small feature of hers - a single eye, for instance - he could almost make the unsettling parts go away. It surprised him that a temple would admit to weakness, even in this small way; to admit something had not gone quite as anticipated.

"Did Neeva fascinate you, too?" he asked sourly.

Padmé gave a small enigmatic shrug. "Not as much. She had potential."

"What do you want of us?" he asked.

She smiled, sidelong. "I'm a weapon. I want to be used. It's that simple at the center of it; it just looks complicated to you, because the process is complex. Feeling curious about the bond between you and your partner helps me function. Besides, it's funny."

Vader glowered. He could not force her to stop finding things funny at his expense. There was nothing he could do to hurt her yet. She hadn't even given him a next instruction, a way out of this room to the next awful thing.

But -

She'd said that they both feared hurting each other. That Tarkin feared hurting Vader, too. He had feared it, already, in the escape pod, but it surprised Vader to think he still did. Vader had been the one who hurt him. He ought to have realized, after that awful struggle through the snow, that this was the way the danger went. He ought to fear something very different now.

"That's true," said Padmé, responding casually to his unspoken thoughts. "That's the same problem I told you about before. The lack of reverence. But he's passed all the other tests. So in a minute, in the next room, I'm going to let you back in with each other. And you're going to have a chance to fix that for him."

"How?" Vader asked. Tarkin was capable of fearing for his own safety, but his response to that fear was atypical; his instinct was to challenge the thing that felt most like a threat, to engage it directly and emerge victorious. That was the attitude he brought to most of his kink scenes with Vader, and it was often maddening. Vader found it hot, really, but he'd never found a way to break through it. If the temple needed it broken, he didn't know what he would do.

"By hurting him, of course," said Padmé. This time the feel of the temple's laughter reached all the way to her mouth, and she giggled, prettily, ladylike. As if it was the best joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is canon-compliant, so we're going to handwave that Hondo is only mostly dead and still gets out of this somehow. How he gets out of it may not be addressed in the fic, because the POV characters really don't give a shit. Honestly, though, Hondo could literally die and then just cheerfully show up somewhere else a year later and be fine and canon would just roll with it.
> 
> (honestly it's just that this fic desperately needed something silly to help it breathe, and Hondo is the silliest pirate. that's all I'm doing here.)
> 
> Next up: some very kinky sexytimes (yeah I know, I've gone like 6 chapters without a sex scene, I don't know what genre this is anymore), and a startling realization.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tests are passed; minds altered; revelations had; high treason is impulsively proposed; and kinky sex happens to save our villains from an even worse fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick content note that this whole chapter is dubcon, of the "an evil Sith temple made them do it but it turned out okay" variety. (I promise there will eventually be chapters that don't have warnable stuff, just, y'know, not quite yet.)

When Tarkin was finished reeling from his vision, the mirror room spat him out into a wide chamber lit more brightly than the room before it, both by those blood-red words clustered thickly around the upper wall and by a series of eerie, flickering braziers. These hung from the ceiling, and what burned in them was not an ordinary fire but magical and insubstantial. A stone slab, large enough for a humanoid body, rose from the floor in the room's center. There were three doors: the one Tarkin had come in by, one of similar size in the opposite wall, and a third, larger and sealed, to one side. The walls were lined with tables and shelves full of tools Tarkin mostly couldn't identify. Small bottles and droppers of liquid; knives and other instruments of ambiguous purpose.

He glanced more closely at those items, unsettled and intrigued. Before he could make a close inspection, the opposite door opened, and Vader stumbled into the room.

Vader froze as Tarkin met his gaze. For a moment, it was like they were seeing each other for the first time.

Vader's injuries looked worse than before. He didn't see blood or new breakages anywhere, but it was the way Vader carried herself, heavier and more haltingly. Tarkin knew how inured Vader was to his body's pain; anything strong enough to affect Vader's gait like this would be... strong.

But there was something else, too, something subtler than mere pain. He hadn't only moved haltingly; for some reason he'd drawn back slightly when he saw Tarkin, as if fearful or ashamed.

Tarkin couldn't quite look at him without seeing an echo of that vision in his mind. His boot grinding Vader's face into the ground.

"I have regained my senses," Vader said at last, carefully and stiffly.

Oh. And - That explained it, actually. Vader had recovered himself and remembered what he'd done to the escape pod, and now he was ashamed. "Do you remember what happened?"

"I do now." Vader paused, seeming to put his words together with great effort. "I did not anticipate... any of it."

He was trying, Tarkin realized, to apologize. And they were in the middle of a Sith temple, so he was doing it even more awkwardly than normal. Tarkin would not be surprised if apologies were literally against Vader's religion.

"Well, that's better than the alternative," said Tarkin. "Sometime very soon I'll want to know what you were flashing back to, and how we can avoid that in the future. But first let's work on getting out of the temple alive. What do you suppose we're meant to do in this room?"

In some ways it was obvious, of course. Tarkin could recognize a torture room; he'd recognized it the moment he walked in. This was a style several thousand years dated, not at all like the polished electrical machines and drug-dispensing droids that the Empire used today. Nor did it resemble the style of instruments that Tarkin liked to use for play. It could, perhaps, have been a room for some strange medical or other purpose, not for pain itself, but in a Sith temple that would amount to the same thing.

But Tarkin didn't know nearly enough about Sith rites to guess what sort of test this was. It might not be as simple as requiring them to torture each other. The temple might need it to be done with some particular aim in mind. Or it might not require pain at all - this might be a subtler test. Take two Sith Lords or acceptable substitutes who valued each other, put them in a room with some torture devices, observe how they reacted.

Tarkin hoped it was just that. He was admittedly a masochist, but even he didn't relish the thought of receiving the real thing.

Vader didn't answer him immediately. Tarkin stood straight, watching carefully but refraining from showing fear, as Vader slowly walked closer to him. Vader rested a hand on the stone slab - was he tired? - and loomed.

Tarkin was uncomfortably reminded of his first visit to Mustafar, when Vader had been informed in advance about the lava monster, but prohibited from warning him. If Vader couldn't immediately tell him this room's purpose, then either he didn't want to admit to his ignorance, or the purpose was something Tarkin would strongly dislike.

"You have no reason to trust me," Vader said at last, haltingly. "You have many reasons not to. But I need you to trust me now."

Tarkin raised his eyebrows.

No one with any sense would ever trust Darth Vader; but of course that was what Tarkin did, every time he consented to Vader's version of sex. The risk, the knowledge that Vader _could_ kill him with a thought, was a part of the thrill. There were ways in which Tarkin really didn't trust Vader. He didn't trust Vader to have a healthy sense of his own needs and limits, or to make good choices, or to respect boundaries without prompting. But he trusted something more fundamental than that: he trusted Vader to be Vader. He knew the kind of risks that Vader posed, and at the end of the day, Tarkin trusted himself to handle them.

Did he trust himself that way now? Vader might be back in his right mind, but he was still clearly unwell, and he'd spent most of today making extremely bad choices, even by his usual standard. Did it make any sense to trust Vader?

Tarkin knew what he _didn't_ trust. He didn't trust this temple. He was making the best of it, but he didn't like being here, and Vader didn't like it either. Vader would continue to be Vaderish about that. He'd sulk and complain, and be violent when it suited him. But Vader, at least, recognized who Tarkin was. Vader knew he'd put Tarkin at risk, and now he was reeling from it. In this situation, recognizing the continued danger, Vader would now do whatever he believed it took to protect him.

_I will not allow any monster to hurt you again,_ Vader had promised, after the thing with the lava monster was resolved. _I will not allow _anything_ to hurt you._

In some sense he'd already failed at that this morning. Vader might easily hurt Tarkin, even now, through impulse or misunderstanding. But inasmuch as Vader had control of his actions, and knowledge of their consequences, and a moment to think about it - yes. Even now, Tarkin trusted that he meant it.

He took a breath, looking up at Vader in the flickering gloom. "What are you planning?"

"This," said Vader, and all at once Tarkin was lifted up into the air.

Tarkin took careful breaths, trying not to think too hard about what was going to happen. The temple intended them to make use of this room; and the main use of this room was clearly unpleasant. But Vader had his own ideas as to how to meet the temple's demands. Vader knew the Sith, and would use that knowledge to strike the best balance he could, passing whatever test this was in the way that did the least harm.

And he'd asked Tarkin, pleaded with him, to trust him. He'd felt that he needed to ask.

Which meant that, whatever this was, it would not be safe or easy at all.

*

Vader concentrated hard on maintaining control as he raised Tarkin onto his back, hovering above the table.

The temple's presence was watching them both very closely. The vision of Padmé had receded again, but not as far as before. She wasn't getting in his way or speaking aloud to him, but he kept thinking he saw her out of the corner of his eye. A rustle of fabrics. A glimpse of flame.

She had given him his instructions before letting him into this room, and her logic was clear. By stating that Tarkin was his, Vader had claimed the master's role. It was therefore up to him to correct Tarkin in any areas where he might be lacking. None of the tools in this room were mandatory components of that process, but he had to use _something._

Vader had dreamed for so long of finally being the master. But this wasn't that. Vader wasn't truly in control here. And the part of the role that had been given to him was the one he liked least. He knew very well how lessons and corrections worked. He did not want to do those things to Tarkin, not when he'd already hurt Tarkin in ways neither of them wanted. He did not want Tarkin to know what those things _were,_ not when he had already seen too much.

But the temple had left him a loophole. She hadn't told him how to give the lesson. She'd only told him to find some way - in this awful room, full of suggestively awful tools - to make Tarkin feel reverence.

Vader had his own ways of making Tarkin feel things. Ways that were his, that were _theirs,_ and not his master's.

He didn't know how exactly he could use them. How exactly the dots connected from the techniques Vader knew to the outcome he needed. But he wouldn't have known that using harsher methods, either. However it was delivered, this wasn't a lesson he'd personally had to be taught. He would trust his instincts, forge ahead, figure something out. As always.

He pressed his senses into Tarkin's body, starting at the crown of the head as usual; carefully applying mild sensation to every square inch and every crevice, focusing until he was sure he could feel it himself. Pleasure wasn't exactly Vader's goal, but he would need this kind of focus for other reasons. He would need to know, deeply and immediately, exactly what he was doing and what it felt like.

"Vader, are you-" Tarkin started, incredulously. "Are you really going to- _here?_"

"You would not enjoy the alternative nearly as much."

He felt Tarkin twitch in his grasp, consider the unpleasant implications of that statement, force himself to relax. To trust Vader's plan, as instructed.

It took longer for Vader to focus here than it would have in a comfortable environment. Stress, fatigue, pressure, even being in an unfamiliar room, all these made it harder to clear and hone his mind. He could do it, just slower. Tarkin was tense and uneasy, but fuck, it was still so good, feeling the senses of a body that wasn't as broken as Vader's regular one. Vader didn't usually play when he was in this much pain - if he was at home, he'd be in his bacta tank with some painkillers, and if he was out at the sex club, he'd be seriously considering cutting the evening short. Pain at this level made it hard to perform. But it also made the contrast between both bodies even sharper, even sweeter.

Not that Tarkin's body was in its best shape, either. The tips of his nose and a few of his fingers were still numb, even after all this time indoors. Frostbitten, probably. Vader swallowed down another roil of guilt and resisted the temptation to prod those areas with sharper and sharper pains until something got through. Tarkin's uniform sat damp and uncomfortable on his body; he usually presented himself so crisply, but this was a uniform that had been slept in, that had absorbed the fear-sweat of multiple life-and-death crises, including a frantic unprotected slog through the snow. The feet were particularly bad. Vader's aversion to cold wasn't as strong when he felt it through someone else's body, but he still couldn't quite bring himself to focus fully on Tarkin's booted feet, with those clammy, snowmelt-filled socks on.

Instead, he took great pleasure in peeling that all off. Tarkin breathed in sharply as Vader stripped him, exposing his skin directly to the air.

"I do not know if the temple has spoken to you," Vader started. Tarkin would need words to ground him, and there was no rule against Vader explaining his purpose. In fact, that would probably make things much easier.

"A little. There was a room where it was able to produce some writing I could read." Something in Tarkin's mind seemed to draw back, even from this simple description. He'd read something, seen something, that disturbed him.

Well, so had Vader. They could talk about it later. Or not.

"It spoke to me as well, but by another means," Vader said. "It informed me of your progress. You have passed nearly every test. When you entered here, I feared that was not possible, but you may yet live. You lack only one thing." With the Force, he caressed the delicate skin of Tarkin's throat, tilting his jaw back. Exposing him, not in the way of a lover's unveiling, but in the way of prey. "You lack reverence."

Tarkin couldn't actually make eye contact with Vader from this angle. He spoke to the ceiling. "And you think you're somehow going to make me reverent by-"

Vader slapped him silent.

Vader liked this. Even now, when his pleasure was not the point, he liked having Tarkin in his grasp. Being able to dole out pain as he saw fit. He liked the way Tarkin's body responded, despite itself, the pulse thrilling ever so slightly faster in his veins.

He _shouldn't_ like it, maybe. This wasn't the thing that he'd told himself he wouldn't do anymore, but he felt oddly ashamed of wanting it, nonetheless. Vader had pushed and cajoled Tarkin into an intimate act that had almost killed them both. What right did he have to ask for another? Even if it was a different one and didn't carry the same risks. Vader had been wrong about the risks already.

"I will show you the Dark Side," Vader said, "in a way you can understand. And you will learn what it means to worship it."

He leaned over the table, letting himself loom in Tarkin's peripheral vision. He kept his Force-grip tight; he didn't want Tarkin to be able to move. He extended a hand straight out over Tarkin's chest, more for effect than anything; he could achieve this with a much smaller motion, but he wanted drama.

He closed his fist and sent paired arcs of burning pain up Tarkin's body, crackling from his hips to his shoulders. He felt Tarkin's teeth clench as a small noise escaped his throat. No gentle beginning, not for this. Only power and pain.

Tarkin's mind flickered strangely. Did something unfamiliar, for a moment, as he drew another slow breath. But what reasserted itself, when his mouth opened, was all Tarkin.

"That's a strange way of converting people, Vader," he said. "I'm not going to worship you just because-"

But it took only a flick of Vader's gloved hand to send the same pain crashing through him again. Vader wasn't displeased. Tarkin wasn't a spiritual person; religious awe didn't come naturally to him. But he'd felt, in that flickering moment, an attempt. A vague clumsy wave in the direction of faith; an experiment in pushing himself to _try_ to feel it. It had failed, and he'd fallen back on a more familiar response instead, but Tarkin had _wanted _to obey. Tarkin would work with him, given the tools.

It filled Vader with an emotion he couldn't quite name. There had been so many horrors today. But Vader had said, _I need you to trust me._ And, even now, Tarkin did.

*

Tarkin had absolutely no idea what Vader thought he was doing.

At least his current position, hovering supine above the stone slab that passed for this room's table, didn't leave him facing one of the shelves of awful tools. Instead the only thing he could focus on was the ceiling, which was black and rather monotonous, really. Further lines of those illegible glowing letters lined its edges.

Tarkin did not know how to be reverent. He knew the Force existed, he_ liked_ the Force when used appropriately, but there was a difference between knowing something existed and finding its existence emotionally meaningful. Tarkin liked plenty of things that people seemed to have built religions around - art, nature, hierarchy, power and so forth - but religion itself seemed irrelevant. You couldn't build a battle station out of religion. You could use it to influence people, but only because other people believed it; and in a galaxy full of so many disparate beliefs, there was usually a better way. He had never felt worshipful; he had never seen the point of such feelings.

He wanted to feel them now, because it was what he needed to do to survive. But he did not know where to begin.

Vader's current methods didn't make much sense to him. If it was this or the actual torture devices, then obviously he preferred this; but he didn't see how either sex or pain had anything to do with the real task at hand. He suspected it was something he wouldn't see until it worked.

_If_ it worked.

He grit his teeth as Vader's Force-touch raged up and down his body. Vader hadn't bothered to make it feel like a physical technique. It was more of a roiling energy field, a storm like the one outside. Heat that seared and flickered unpredictably, sharpness that flicked under his skin. It was very intense and it had come on quickly. He was already panting shallowly against it, unable to quite keep composure.

"We will start at the beginning," said Vader. "With something you understand. You believe, at least, that the Force exists."

"I do."

"You believe that it is larger than you. That it has you in its grasp."

Vader's Force-touch tightened around him, nearly crushing his ribs with a sharp spasm, and Tarkin gasped in pain. "Yes."

"That it can do with you as it pleases. It can end you, here and now. It can torment you forever if it wishes." And there was that hint of mischief again in Vader's voice, despite everything. "Or it can give you pleasure."

The roil of energy around him changed, for a moment, by the slightest degree. It was not an intense pleasure, not yet. Only a hint of what could be in store. A sudden warming, soothing feeling that teased him with its comfort, that swirled seductively up his inner thighs, before it vanished into pain again.

Tarkin narrowed his eyes. "I always thought you were the one doing those things. The Force is your tool, that's all. Or should I have been going on dates with _it?_"

"You mock me only because you cannot feel," said Vader. He made a small movement, and Tarkin felt a strange rush, like the heat blown off of a smelter roiling through him, like a hurricane wind. "You cannot sense what the Force truly is. It is larger than you can comprehend, and it is alive, and it is everywhere. Sith and Jedi can move the Force around ourselves for a purpose. But the Force moves us as well, for its own will, whether we are sensitive to it or not. That is what we call destiny."

Tarkin bit his tongue to stop from making another unseemly sound. He didn't know what this rushing sensation was supposed to signify, but it was making him entirely lose track of where his body was in space, and it wouldn't end.

Being moved around by something else's will did not appeal to him. Tarkin doubted he would worship a Force that worked like that, even if he could sense it. He suspected he'd have the perverse urge to defy it, instead. To show it, as with everything, that he was stronger.

"But you cannot be expected to feel your destiny," said Vader. "You cannot even feel the temple. If I passed my own feeling of it on to you, you would not understand. You are only equipped to feel me, in this room, and what I am doing to you."

The rushing stopped. It subsided back into the burning roil it had been before, and Tarkin was left gasping, reorienting himself. He felt more dizzy than impressed. But he was certainly very aware of Vader's presence next in his peripheral vision, side-lit by those braziers. He felt very exposed, very aware of the scope of awful things that Vader might do to him next.

"Then perhaps," Vader continued, "you can be made to worship _me._"

At that, Tarkin felt a chuckle escape his throat. He couldn't help himself. "Vader, I'm sure someone's told you that your brand of sex is a religious experience, but _really-_"

Vader slapped him again.

Was it possible he was serious? Vader wasn't literally the Dark Side. But perhaps he meant to serve as a more comprehensible stand-in for the real thing. That was not far from the role Vader played in some Imperial propaganda. An embodiment of power, an image for individuals to rally behind or cower before. More a symbol than a person.

But Vader, even at his most monstrous, was a person to Tarkin. It was difficult to worship a person when you'd seen them pouting childishly over trivia, struggling with their fluid intake ports, spinning an airspeeder recklessly just to annoy you. Tarkin loved Vader, but he was not sure he could worship him. It seemed like that would require erasing half the interesting parts of Vader's personality.

"You have come closer to this than you think," said Vader. "Focus on me. Answer my questions, yes or no. Whether you attribute it to the Force or to me, you like my power. I _have_ felt that. It was what drew you to me in the first place. There is something in you that craves the attention of a power greater than yours. Isn't there?"

Tarkin was still panting; he couldn't seem to catch his breath. "Yes, but-"

Vader jerked him upward from his supine position, bending him backwards in an arc. Tarkin did like this, despite everything. He felt his pulse rushing faster. "There is something in you that lusts to _feel_ that power. You have only your physical senses to work with, your sight and hearing, the sensitivity of your skin." The roil of energy around him seemed to tighten. It left what felt like burning streaks across his skin, searing in their intensity. He bit back a moan. "So you let as much into those senses as you can bear. Because that is how you understand the Force, that is how you feel my power, and you want that power, surrounding you, claiming you. Don't you?"

"Yes, but-"

This time Vader's Force-grip drew in startlingly fast around his cock. Tarkin made a small, trapped noise. He ought not to have been as aroused as he already was. He liked his mind engaged during play, and this was more than just the verbal sparring that he usually drew Vader into. This was a real mental task, and it absorbed his mind completely, leaving his body defenseless against what it liked.

"But you do not merely want to feel power outside you. You do not want to be made small. You have explained that to me more than once. You wish to prove yourself against it. The more it hurts you, the more you endure, the more it makes you strong."

"Yes," said Tarkin.

He could almost see it. Not quite. He couldn't see his way to actually feeling worshipful, but he could see the metaphor. More than once, while he was still figuring things out, a much-younger Tarkin had approached another dominant and offered to switch, only to be told that the way he wanted to do it didn't make sense. He couldn't have it both ways; he couldn't both submit and feel powerful. Those people had been wrong, of course, and he'd encountered other masochists since then who worked the same way. But it had taken a few years to realize why they were wrong, and longer still to find someone like Vader, who could actually do the things Tarkin liked consistently.

Tarkin had complained that Vader's worship of the Dark Side didn't make sense. That it seemed to make him miserable in exchange for his power, and that it didn't make sense to accept misery at that level, powerful or not. But perhaps Tarkin understood more than he wanted to admit. Perhaps both of these things were paradoxes in almost the same way.

Vader pushed inside him, and he made another strangled noise. A whole series of them, really. This was just where he liked to be, when he played submissive to Vader. Filled up with sensation, aching, ecstatic.

He tried to focus on the feeling. That was what Sith did, he was fairly sure; they favored feeling over logic. If he could just somehow feel everything hard enough, maybe he would understand worship. Maybe it would _be_ worship, in some strange, Sith definition of the word.

"Is there any feeling in the world," Vader said, "that you love more than the feeling of power?"

And there was only one honest answer to that. Power was what Tarkin loved, wielding it and being in its thrall, both for pleasure and for the most serious purpose. Nearly everything Tarkin loved involved power, to a greater or a lesser degree.

"No," he said.

"Then what is the difference between reverence and love?"

Vader was moving in him, burning around him, and it was difficult to think. "I don't know. One is personal and one is - cosmic? One is about private desires, and one - aagh - purpose? The ordering of the universe? I don't _know,_ Vader. I can't describe to you something I can't even feel."

"Try harder," Vader said harshly, and the energy roiling over Tarkin's skin exploded.

That was what it felt like, anyway. He couldn't think of another word. It had already been a robust pain and an intense pleasure, an eager rough movement around and inside him, but in an instant it had tripled. He grit his teeth, strangling a scream; he could not speak. His skin was on fire. This was past his limits, this was _too_ much pain. He had no idea how this was supposed to help him figure anything out. It was nearly impossible to think at all, when his skin was on fire and peeling away.

But the Sith were about feelings, particularly the worst feelings. Pain was a feeling.

_I need you to trust me now._

Tarkin tried. He closed his eyes, and with every scrap of will at his disposal, he _tried_ to feel reverence. He tried to feel the pain in his body as the extension of something greater: the Force itself, the universe, Vader's implacable will. He tried to feel those things in his body, immanent, real things he could interact with and adore. He tried, he reached, but they were only abstract concepts in his mind. Only the pain itself was real.

He tried, on and on, an agonized effort that seemed to fill several whole minutes. He tried, until he felt something collapse in him, like an injured leg giving out under his weight. He was only floating an inch above the stone table, panting, panicking. He did not know how to try anymore. To fail at this task, in this room, to admit defeat, was death. He did not know what to do. He was not _used_ to not knowing what to do.

Vader, perhaps sensing his shift in mental state, dialed the pain back down.

"This isn't working," said Tarkin. He could speak now through his gulping breaths, at least.

And Vader gave him another flicker of incongruous pleasure, as if in encouragement. Tarkin didn't see _why_ Vader was encouraging him. Surely despair was not a thing to reward. He hadn't given in to despair, not yet, but he felt it coming. He was barely holding it at bay.

Vader placed his own gloved hand, lightly, at the center of Tarkin's heaving chest.

"There is one more thing I can try," he said. "I can help you. But you must let me into your mind."

Tarkin stared up at him. He knew what Vader meant. Vader was already focused on Tarkin with his mental senses, sharing all of Tarkin's sensations, but there was more he could do. Tarkin had dared Vader to do this before, in arguments, when Vader had refused to believe Tarkin about his own intentions. _Look at me. Look at my mind. _He'd said it, knowing it might mean the agony of a mind probe, and he'd stared Vader down anyway, unafraid.

He was afraid now.

"Fine," he snapped. What mattered was succeeding at this. Tarkin wasn't going to die here, not without knowing he'd tried _everything_ first.

"It will hurt less if you do not resist," Vader advised, and then he made a minute movement with his hand.

Pain split open Tarkin's skull, an entirely different pain than before. He tried to remember not to resist, but the entire question of resisting or not seemed irrelevant. It just _was,_ like the worst of headaches or the suddenest of wounds. He heard himself groaning as if from a long way away.

He could not feel what Vader was doing, aside from putting pain in his head, but he suddenly found himself absorbed by incongruous thoughts, memories that came up through the pain without conscious intent.

When Tarkin was very young, his relatives had taken him on journeys to a wild plateau, one of the old parts of Eriadu which still remained untamed. The Tarkin family were the de facto rulers of their world; they could have done nearly anything they chose. But they chose to remain close to the traditions of their ancestors, the original colonists who'd dealt with the jungle in its wildest and most brutal form. Nobody could effectively wield something as abstract as political power, the Tarkins believed, unless they remembered its roots. The need to form order out of nature's chaotic maelstrom. The need to be strong to survive. The will to make the hardest choices in a moment: life or death. Kill or be killed.

He did not know why he was remembering them now, but he remembered those adolescent journeys. A pack of giant wild cats, their fangs bared, the stink of them. The terror as his ungrown self looked in their slitted eyes, and the rush of power, something more potent than mere relief, when they lay dead at his feet.

"When have you felt awe?" Vader murmured, and though that deep voice carried a hint of command, Tarkin had the feeling Vader wasn't talking to him. He was muttering to himself, guiding his own search by means Tarkin couldn't fathom. "When have you felt _power?_"

Tarkin could not focus, and he didn't try. Didn't resist. He let his memories absorb him.

The first time he'd ever looked at the Death Star's plans. The way his breath slowly escaped as he took in what this proposed weapon truly was. How glorious a sight it would be, from the bridge of an approaching ship; how terrifying, when it emerged over a populated world in the blue of the deceptive sky. How deeply a weapon like this would change both war and politics, forever.

The first time, after his early military training, that he'd set foot on the bridge of a warship. Part of the Republic's Anti-Piracy Task Force. A smallish one, in retrospect, but what a thrill it had been at the time, to place his own hand at last on that deadly helm.

A thousand missions, large and small. A thousand varied victories. A thousand entertaining cruelties in the service of something greater than himself, in the service of order and peace. This was how a man like Tarkin fit in the galaxy, knowing that even his darkest parts played willingly into a greater plan.

The first time he ever worked with Vader - not Vader's old self, but his fearsome, masked, Imperial form. The first time he'd seen Vader's pure destructive force used to its fullest extent.

The first time he'd let Vader fuck him. The dizzy moment, as Vader loomed impatiently, when he'd realized that he _wanted_ Vader. That he'd risk his life, give himself over for the hour, if it meant feeling the terrible pleasure a man like Vader could offer him.

Tarkin wasn't Force-sensitive enough for this. He assumed Vader was actively rooting around in his mind, drawing the memories out by some mechanism, but he couldn't feel that. He was only aware of the pain and the memories, and of the swirl of energy that still surrounded his body, of Vader still inside him _that_ way. Maybe the two were somehow connected, Vader penetrating both his body and his mind; he didn't feel aroused by the latter, but maybe it was somehow the same thing. Maybe-

"I can see it," said Vader, abstracted and urgent, in that voice that wasn't quite meant for Tarkin anymore. "I can see how to do it. I can-"

And he moved something small in the depths of Tarkin's mind, something so foundational that even Tarkin's weak mental senses felt it move. It was a sensation that didn't make any sense, like the odd undifferentiated thing he'd felt in the meditation chamber, but even less connected to what he understood as his body. Like two parts of a circuit, pulled forcefully together. Connecting.

Tarkin could feel it.

Tarkin _understood._

Fear, violence, pain, all the disagreeable things he loved to use for the purposes he chose: these were the Dark Side. These were one thing, and he could feel it. All the things he chose to endure because they made him strong: these were the Dark Side. All the things he loved most about Vader, both the power and the vulnerability, these were all the Dark. It was one thing. And it was a thing so large it underpinned the universe, a darkness he served and was served by, a darkness he _wielded,_ even without sensitivity to the Force. A darkness that had always been his own.

He could feel it now, at his fingertips, a sensation more enticing and consuming than sex. He could feel, in this moment, how deep and wide this power truly was. Most of it would never be accessible to him, not with the senses he possessed, but nonetheless it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever felt.

He could dimly sense, too, that this feeling was a dangerous drug. He had wondered why anyone would agree to be a Sith Lord. Constant misery, subjugation to the cruelest of masters, in exchange for a little more power. He didn't wonder that anymore. He might have taken that deal himself, if it were offered in this moment, if he believed himself capable of fulfilling it. Any pain, if it meant he could keep feeling like this more and more forever.

"Oh," Tarkin said, in a small, shaken voice.

"Yes," Vader responded, heavy with something more like relief than triumph. "Yes, you see. You _see_ it."

His Force-touch, tight around Tarkin's cock and inside him, spasmed hard. Pressed against his nerves even more urgently than before. Once, twice, and then Tarkin came, gasping, overwhelmed. This was connected to the Dark Side, too, somehow: maybe only in Tarkin's mind, where every single form of intensity swirled together into one awful, delightful blur.

The pain left him, and Vader lowered him to sprawl on the uncomfortable cold black stone. His limbs were under his own control again, apparently. He caught his breath, gradually returning to himself.

At the side of the room, the third door, the one that led deeper into the temple, slowly ground open.

Tarkin let himself relax even further for just a moment, boneless with relief. They'd done it. They'd made him reverent enough and the temple was satisfied.

"That," he said, struggling to put what he felt into words. "That's how it feels. For you."

"At times," Vader said, oddly sour.

Beyond the door, in the dim red light, there was a wide flight of steps leading upward. Tarkin couldn't see its top from here, but there was a shift in the light as the steps ascended, something that looked tantalizingly brighter.

He opened his mouth to remark on it, but stopped. Beside him, Vader had begun to slump, supporting himself against the edge of the table with his hands.

Tarkin had nearly forgotten to think about what this ritual must have been like for Vader. Tarkin had been the one going through the actual ordeal, but it was both their lives at stake, and Vader had the role requiring more skill, more decision-making. More fear for what would happen to his lover if he put a foot wrong. And he'd already looked ill when he entered the room. Tarkin pushed himself up to sit upright, carefully placing his bare feet on the cool stone floor. "Are you all right?"

"I am... tired. It will pass."

Tarkin looked him up and down, understanding what had gone unsaid, the pain and hunger and cold, and whatever other symptoms Vader was experiencing today. Tarkin didn't feel bad at all himself, now that the pain was gone; if anything, there was a lingering euphoria. But it was clear to him that Vader wasn't feeling good in that same way. This ritual had taken something out of him, something he'd needed.

And, when Tarkin thought about it, there was only one way Vader could have learned techniques like the one he'd just used.

Oh dear.

"Was that... something you've done?" he hazarded. "With your master?"

The amused disgust in Vader's voice was palpable. "Of course not."

"I don't mean all of it. I know he doesn't fuck you. I meant, ah-" Tarkin gestured to his head. He felt uncharacteristically at a loss for words to describe this. It hadn't been just a mind probe. He didn't object to the way Vader had used it on him; it had worked, after all. It had felt more good than bad, and it had kept them both safe. But the more he tried to imagine Palpatine using the Force that way on Vader, the more the mental image disturbed him. Palpatine's uses of this power, he was sure, would be significantly less kind. "He's gone into your head before? And changed things?"

Vader paused. "It is a temporary effect. The mind's accustomed shape reasserts itself in time. Yours will wear off within the hour."

Tarkin was uncomfortably aware that this meant _yes._

He levered himself off the table and busied himself retrieving his clothes. He didn't particularly relish the thought of putting them back on. His body was sticky with sweat and other fluids, and the clothes themselves were cold and sodden, wrinkled and dirty with the effects of all he'd gone through in the past couple of days. He picked them up, at least, along with his boots, and glanced uneasily at the open doorway. The temple had decided they'd passed this test. Would it revoke that decision if he said something blasphemous now?

"There's one thing I still don't understand," he said.

"There are many things of that description," Vader retorted.

He might not have gone ahead with it, if not for the post-ritual euphoria. But Vader was a Sith Lord, and Tarkin was temporarily the next best thing. They were strong. They were made of darkness. Why in the galaxy _should_ they be afraid of difficult topics? Why should the temple be, either?

"You did this to me, just now," said Tarkin, reluctantly putting his undergarments back on. "And it was sacred, because it made me feel powerful. It put power in me; it made me understand the power that was already there. If that's the general use of Sith rites, then I approve. But your master - he makes you feel small."

Vader shifted, looking sicker than ever as he leaned against the table. "This line of questioning will go poorly for you."

"Don't deny it, Vader. I've seen your face."

Vader looked coiled. Not like a serpent about to strike, but like some other animal, armor-plated, bracing for the moment when it would turn in on itself. "I will not deny it."

Tarkin pulled his trousers back on, frowning slightly at the feel of the fabric, still cold and damp below the knees. If anything, this part of Sith practice made even less sense, after what he'd just been shown. "And you're supposed to put up with that, what, forever? Until he dies of old age, which you somehow don't believe he'll do?"

"Until I kill him," Vader snapped.

Tarkin stared.

That could not be it. It could not be both so simple and so unthinkably perverse. Even in a temple of darkness itself, he had not expected-

"You're _meant_ to kill him," he stammered, trying to fit his head around the concept. "You're - intended to?"

"By the Rule of Two, there is no room for waste. There can only be one master and one apprentice, and they must be the worthiest two, the strongest in the galaxy. The master searches the apprentice for weakness, for the day when he proves unworthy and can be replaced by a better student. The apprentice searches the master for weakness, for the day when the apprentice has surpassed him. The last duty of an apprentice, on that day, is to destroy the master and take his place; and thus the Sith Order grows ever stronger. It is tradition. But it does not matter, because it will not come to pass. The Emperor has no weakness."

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. "Really? No weaknesses like jealousy?"

Vader froze entirely. His mask faced Tarkin with a fixed gaze; his muscles tense, but his face unreadable.

It was the highest treason imaginable even to think this. It was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. It was a betrayal of everything else, besides Vader, that Tarkin had ever valued. And yet - they were in a temple to an entire religion in which murdering one's master was apparently sacred tradition. If there was any place in the galaxy in which Tarkin could contemplate saying this, it was here.

"That was just one off the top of my head. I'm not Force-Sensitive, Vader. I can't be your apprentice. But, if you hadn't noticed, I am something of an expert in detecting and exploiting an opponent's weakness. Let me help you."

He wanted it. Treason or no. He would have to process that later; he was dimly aware that he was going to be very alarmed with himself later, when the euphoria had worn off. But in this room, here and now, wanting it was enough.

For several long moments, Vader didn't move at all. Tarkin counted two of those mechanical breaths. Three.

"You have no idea what you are asking," he said at last. "My answer is no. Never ask again."

"But _why-_" Tarkin started, and Vader extended a hand. All at once the Force closed in around Tarkin's face, pressing his jaw shut so roughly that his teeth ground together.

Vader had done this to Tarkin once before, in lieu of choking him, when his questions had pressed too close to something too painful. He recognized it. He could breathe through it. But he had pressed too far, after all, even by the standards of this room. Vader in this state would not be moved.

"You try my patience," Vader said. There was a roughness in his voice. A strong emotion, but not one Tarkin could fully identify. "I require rest. Go up there and familiarize yourself with the temple's targeting mechanisms. I will follow in a minute."

He let Tarkin go, and Tarkin winced, regaining his balance and rubbing his jaw. There were several things worth following up on about that, but the first was- "Targeting mechanisms?"

"This room was the last test," said Vader. "The tests are over. Now you are to calibrate and fire the weapon that is one and the same with this building, and I am to direct you."

Oh. It shouldn't have surprised him that Vader knew that before he did. Vader had already been speaking with the temple in ways Tarkin couldn't perceive, getting information Tarkin wasn't privy to until Vader told him. It was hard to guess how much had been revealed to him, besides his missing memories, while they'd been separated.

Tarkin felt a sigh escape him, and his shoulders unclenched. No more tests. That was good. Finally getting to the reward at the end of all this: that was good, too. He didn't want to stay in this building any longer than necessary. He busied himself putting his shirt and jacket back on. "And it won't disturb the temple if I leave you here? We won't be separated again?"

Vader, oddly, looked away from him a moment. Sideways, as if checking something invisible to Tarkin's senses. He looked back again half a breath later. "No. From here onward, no further doors will be shut to us."

Tarkin picked up a cold wet sock and frowned at it. His feet itched vaguely, and he really did not want to put his footwear back on, but he couldn't very well traverse the rest of the temple barefoot. He particularly couldn't go barefoot back out into the snow. "Are you and the temple... talking?" he asked, to distract himself. More idle curiosity than anything. He had no idea how this place looked or sounded to Vader's senses.

"Slightly," said Vader. He paused. "She says that, considering your limitations, you have done quite well."

Tarkin grimaced, forcing himself to slip the damp socks back on to his feet. "'She'? It has a gender now?"

"No."

"Should I be jealous?"

"_No._"

He pushed his protesting feet back into their boots, and then stood properly, looking at Vader's bent form. He wanted to help, and there might not _be_ help available until they left this place. Maybe not even then, for a while. He didn't know precisely what Vader was going through. He could understand wanting to rest, but he also remembered uncomfortably about troops who'd sustained head injuries or serious hypothermia, troops who just wanted to sleep, and who died when they did.

"You're going to stay awake, aren't you?" he asked, trying to be stern. "You're not going to rest _that_ much."

"That would be impossible."

"Well, I'm just going to go up those stairs and see what's what in the next room. And if you haven't followed within a few minutes, I'll be coming back to check on you."

Vader waved a hand impatiently. "Go."

Tarkin turned to the empty patch of room that Vader had looked at, a moment ago, before passing on the temple's words to him. "_You_ can make sure he follows promptly, if you'd like."

He didn't expect a response, and didn't wait for one, before turning on his heel and venturing through the door. Up that formidable-looking black flight of stairs, towards the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything is sex, except sex, which is power


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is treason all over the place; Vader's health gets worse; the temple's user interface is unnecessarily complicated; spacetime is no impediment to a Sith weapon's range; and Tarkin learns, for once in his life, that killing what he hates will not save what he loves.

At the top of the stairway, the temple opened out into another room, brighter and clearer than the previous one. It was beginning to look like a proper place of worship now, not just a maze of dark stone.

There was a high arched ceiling and some flat-faced light fixtures set in the walls: actual lights this time and not only those glowing words. In pride of place under the arches stood another table. A holomap glowed green above it, displaying some diagram that Tarkin couldn't immediately identify, and the surface below it brimmed with controls. It was vaguely reassuring seeing controls, even in a style thousands of years out of date.

Beyond the table, five more steps led up to a dais of sorts. Big enough for one person to stand on, half-encircled by a thin transparent wall, facing another of those mirrorlike slabs. There wasn't currently any writing on the slab. Beyond even that, at the back of the room, was another sealed doorway. An exit, perhaps.

Tarkin suspected that this was a two-part process. He and Vader would work together to aim and calibrate, and then he would go up to that dais to fire. Then, when the temple was satisfied, they be allowed to leave.

Or was Vader necessary for this at all? _One directs and the other acts. _Had Vader completed his purpose by bringing Tarkin this far, by ensuring he was sufficiently reverent and prepared?

Tarkin drew forward to inspect the controls more closely. They were labeled in the same illegible ancient language as everything else. A few looked familiar. A dial that looked suspiciously like a power modulator, for instance. He hesitantly touched it, and found that it wouldn't budge under his fingers.

The other controls were like that too. Nor did the display, with its cryptic diagram, respond to any of his proddings.

Fine. He needed Vader for this, after all.

He glanced back down the long, wide flight of steps. He couldn't quite see Vader from all the way up here, and he hadn't been up here long enough to justify running back down yet. That gave him a bit of time to think.

_Let me help you,_ he'd said. It had slipped out so easily. It had been the one thing he'd been trying so hard not to say, in all his attempts to figure out -

Well.

He _had_ been trying to figure out how to help, hadn't he? He'd simply refused to take it to its logical conclusion. He'd been trying to figure out a strategy that didn't involve fully turning against the Emperor, but maybe that _was_ the most efficient solution. And what were Sith rites for, if not for facing ugly truths, embracing the atrocities that needed to be done?

(Not ugly truths. Beautiful ones. He still felt the echoes of that feeling, even now.)

Tarkin could afford to think a little more. Vader had already refused his offer, so this was simply a... thought experiment.

_How_ to do it, how to catch the Emperor unawares, would be a difficult problem. It would require Tarkin's wiles and Vader's mystical senses working in concert, and it would take time. But say for the sake of argument that they did it. What then?

Vader would be Emperor when Palpatine fell. It would be a fairly smooth transition, particularly with Tarkin helping. Fear, if nothing else, would stop any open protest. And then-

Then Vader could do whatever he liked. He could live however he wanted to. He could control the galaxy, to the extent that such things interested him. He could end the Sith Order, or he could take an apprentice - perhaps from among the Inquisitors - and do it his way this time. He could get actual psychological therapy.

Tarkin wasn't sure where he and Vader stood right now, despite the sex they'd just had. He had yet to come up with a solution to the problem of Vader's relationship to his body. His utter inability to think clearly about his safety. And that problem was becoming intolerable. But if Vader was no longer under Palpatine's thumb, then more resources could be put toward the problem. Palpatine could no longer intentionally stoke Vader's fears and make everything worse. He couldn't create artificial scarcity in Vader's schedule. The kinds of memories that had caused such difficulty today would not vanish, but at least Palpatine wouldn't be there to lay down Force knew how many _new_ ones, and that meant there would be time enough to deal with the old.

If Palpatine was out of the picture and Vader was willing to put in the work, he could learn to relate to his body in whatever way he wanted. He could be passionately in love or lust with whomever he liked, and no one would try to punish him for it. He would get to say, to whomever he wished, _I'm yours._

And Tarkin-

If he was finally letting himself think these things, he may as well think of his side of it, too.

Vader would rule the galaxy, but Vader had no interest in politics and, frankly, no skill. And unless their relationship fell apart completely, Tarkin would be his unofficial Imperial consort, one of the few people in the whole galaxy Vader might listen to. Tarkin knew how to leverage a position like that. Moffs and admirals, businesspeople and Senators, all of them would come clamoring to the steps of the Imperial Palace seeking Vader's favor, and Vader would have no time for them. But Tarkin would. Vader would not have the patience to puzzle out diplmatic and legislative subtleties. But Tarkin would.

He felt that power from the ritual still, buzzing at his fingertips, just out of reach.

_We could rule the galaxy together._

He didn't feel guilty about it, using a relationship for his advantage like that. Tarkin had been raised knowing that he'd marry for political advantage. All his other relationships had their political components, too - Admiral Daala being only the most egregious example. Love wasn't sacrosanct, not the way certain pearl-clutching Core Worlders wanted it to be. It didn't exist in some bubble, separate from all other human affairs. Of course it would influence them, and be influenced by them in turn.

He felt guilty, rather, because this was treason. Palpatine had been a mentor to Tarkin, and Tarkin had his favor, not only because he was ruthless and clever and good at his job, but because he _hated_ treason. The whole point of having an Empire was to maintain order. One had to keep doing what one's superiors said, or the whole thing would collapse.

But if Palpatine had taken a position that _allowed_ his apprentice to kill him - if that was the way orderly succession was supposed to work for Sith Lords, then-

Then nothing, really, because Vader had already turned that option down.

Tarkin looked pensively down the long stairway. Sith doctrines mattered so much to Vader. It didn't make sense, to think that of all the strictures he followed, he'd chosen to defy this particular one. Perhaps it wasn't full defiance. Simply too much for Vader to think about right now, ill as he was. And, perhaps, with the risk it posed to Tarkin should they fail.

They'd had a similar problem their first date on Mustafar. Vader had rejected Tarkin's romantic overtures, but only because he was afraid of the risk. Once he'd admitted that, t hey'd been able to work things out. Maybe this would be similar, if Tarkin gave it time.

Tarkin wouldn't pester Vader any further. Not directly. Not today. But he'd keep alert; he'd keep on quietly reminding Vader that his happiness mattered. When Vader was ready, Vader would bring it up again himself.

And then-

Then they could both have _everything._

*

"For someone so intent on being the master," Padmé observed, "you really didn't seem to enjoy that."

Vader hated her, hated this temple, hated how ill and exhausted he felt. He hated having been made to hurt Tarkin so intensely, to break into the roots of his mind, just to survive. He hated the way he'd felt her leaning in, at his peripheral vision, curiously watching what should have been a private ordeal. He hated the offer Tarkin had subsequently made most of all. Vader was fucking _full_ of hate, which was as good a mental state for Sith as any.

He was also full of pain and nausea. He'd known he was too tired for play, and this had been more taxing than normal play. He'd stretched himself nearly to his limit, trying to find the right parts of Tarkin's mind to connect to each other. It was much more difficult than a mere mind trick; it was a transformation that had to go to his very core. Vader had exhausted himself, and now he was paying for it, and he hated that too.

He had bits of Tarkin's mind splattered all over him now. That wasn't as bad as the pain. It was better than being covered in Hondo Ohnaka; Vader, at least, liked the feel of Tarkin's mind. But it was one more sensory reminder of how fucked up things were right now.

"I see what you like about him," said Padmé. "His mind is strong. His will holds up. Maybe he should be the master next time."

"Be silent," Vader snapped.

"I'll be very quiet when I'm dormant. You won't even feel me anymore. But I'm not the one who's delaying, Ani."

Vader attempted to steady himself against the table. He hadn't wanted to delay. But he'd urgently wanted to end the conversation with Tarkin, and he wasn't sure he could deal with those stairs yet. Normally stairs weren't a problem, but at the moment Vader couldn't even shift his weight without pains shooting through his limbs and his stomach lurching. He thought he might vomit if he climbed them. He hoped not.

Vader's usual medicines included anti-emetics, because his normal level of pain was bad enough to nauseate most people, but of course he didn't have his meds today. Provisions for such emergencies were built into his suit. If Vader's stomach did try to void itself, an emergency valve would open and drain its contents away. This removed any danger of Vader choking on his vomit or soiling the inside of his mask, but it was still intensely unpleasant. He would like to avoid it if possible. At the moment that meant standing very still and trying not to let the temple bait him into violent emotion.

The temple seemed determined to bait him, though. "It's a shame he isn't Force-sensitive," she mused.

"If he were Force-sensitive," Vader growled, "he would be dead."

He might still be dead shortly. Tarkin had promised, last night, that he wasn't proposing anything treasonous; but all he'd needed was the euphoria of a single Sith rite, and suddenly he wanted to conspire to regicide. Just as Vader had feared. If Vader took him up on that offer, it would kill them both.

Besides, Tarkin wasn't in his right mind. Vader had profoundly, though temporarily, altered him. He was no better able to consent than if he'd been sleep-talking or intoxicated. In the worst-case scenario, in case Palpatine noticed and asked about it, Vader had that defense at the ready. Tarkin had been drunk on a kind of power he'd never been meant to feel. He hadn't understood what he'd said. It wouldn't recur.

It had fucking better not recur. Even Vader couldn't protect Tarkin infinitely.

He wasn't sure he could protect Tarkin at all, honestly. He'd failed so badly at that already. Even if they never did anything dangerous with Vader's body again, there were so many other dangers. The closer Tarkin got to Vader, the more he saw of the shames and breaking points Vader kept hidden inside. And those things weren't only embarrassing but deadly. They kept drawing Tarkin back into these traitorous thoughts, like a moth to a zapper light.

"I still don't really understand this Rule of Two thing," Padmé remarked. "You have to adapt to your own century's needs, of course, but I can't say I approve. It seems like you limit yourselves-"

"I am going upstairs," Vader interrupted, and he turned and stormed up the steps. He would rather fall, or vomit, or any other humiliation, than listen to her voice any longer.

"You don't have to rush on my account," she called mockingly after him.

He tried to stomp up the stairs like an unstoppable avatar of darkness, but after a couple steps he had to lean on the wall, swallowing hard. Of course there wasn't a railing or a landing on which to rest. Of course it was just painful strides further and further up forever. That seemed like a metaphor, somehow.

They didn't actually go up forever, of course. He stumbled slightly as he reached the top, and there was Tarkin, hands out, steadying him. "It's all right, Vader. I've got you. I believe this is the last room."

Vader hated it intensely, being coddled like this. It was one thing in a meditation chamber, where removing some defenses was the whole point. It was much worse out here, in a place where Vader was supposed to be strong.

He pulled himself together, though, and looked at the table and the dais beyond it. Every Sith temple worked by a different mechanism. Some had mechanisms that were purely psychic, little more than a small platform like the one atop the dais. But since this temple was open to a wider range of worshipers, it made sense that its targeting system would be more concrete.

"I've taken a look at this," Tarkin said, "but I can't seem to operate it alone; the controls won't move. Also I'm not sure what any of the writing says."

Vader walked to the table, narrowly managing not to stumble again. He couldn't really think straight, but he could focus enough to read a word at a time. "This one says, 'temperature,'" he said. "And this-"

He hesitated, not quite recognizing the Sith word that was spelled out.

"Aperture radius," said Padmé's voice in Basic, uncomfortably close to his ear.

"Aperture radius," Vader repeated, and no fucking wonder he couldn't read that one; Palpatine never had to talk to him in Sith about the _aperture radius_ of anything. "And this-"

He reached for the display, more on instinct than anything else; it felt like a thing he'd want to reach for. At his touch, the diagram lit up and colored in, showing a map of the area for several miles around the temple. A small map key glowed in the corner, displaying the colors that would be used to highlight enemy life forms. There were several in what looked like a makeshift camp, about half a mile away. Its markings resembled the ones Vader had seen in Hondo's mind, but it was smaller than he remembered. Half the pirates had apparently packed up and left. There was another marking within the temple itself, but it was dim, in a color that indicated an enemy already incapacitated or dying. That one was probably Hondo.

Tarkin peered at it. "What's that?"

"A map of our enemies, but there are fewer nearby than I remembered."

Tarkin quirked an eyebrow. "Remembered?"

Oh. In all the confusion, Vader hadn't actually gotten around to discussing this. And Tarkin was the one who'd wanted to know who the pirates were. "While we were separated, I encountered a pirate. He had entered the temple with a companion and had failed its tests. I retrieved some information from his mind before disposing of him."

"Oh? And you didn't save him for me?" Tarkin smiled slightly. "I found someone too, but she was dead already. Electrically burned. So who are these mysterious pirates, and how many of them can we kill?"

Vader's stomach clenched. Some part of him, without admitting it, had faintly hoped that Neeva was alive; that the incredible buzz of electricity Hondo felt had only been a cruel trick. That Neeva could, perhaps, be retrieved for training rather than killed. But Tarkin had no reason to care. Force lightning was just lightning to him, and a Force-sensitive girl's body was just a body.

"They are agents of Crimson Dawn," Vader replied. "One of their leader's lieutenants came to the planet intending to loot this temple for valuables. They raided nearby systems to supply their investigations. The girl you saw was Force-sensitive, and they used her to gain access to the temple's interior."

"Ah. That explains it." Tarkin frowned slightly. "She failed the tests, but her companion was alive?"

"In a manner of speaking. His death was a mercy." Except judging from the display, he wasn't quite dead, but never mind.

Tarkin looked at the display. "And there are fewer of them now, you said? The others must have left after realizing the Empire found them, or perhaps after the initial two who entered failed to return. That's a pity; I was looking forward to putting on a good display."

"Do not concede defeat yet," said Vader, and he reached for the display again, mentally feeling his way through its mechanisms.

The temple knew that Vader and Tarkin had entered here with the pirates in mind as their enemies. And so it was now connected faintly, through the Force, to every Crimson Dawn pirate who had set foot on its surface. Vader followed those mental threads, and the display zoomed out gradually, splitting in two. One half of the display zeroed in on the small camp, focusing closely enough to show the tiny figures of the individual pirates going about their business. The other half flung itself through spacetime and outside of it, making Vader's head spin. He kept his focus, but it was a struggle. At last the display settled on an image of a group of pirate ships, some of which Vader remembered from last night's battle, in hyperspace. Fleeing the scene, as Tarkin had deduced.

"That's-" Tarkin spluttered, disbelieving. "Is that _hyperspace,_ Vader? Nothing can fire into hyperspace. With the Empire's best technology, we even track a ship through it yet."

Vader felt smug. "Do you suppose that time and space are so important to the Force as to limit its operation?"

"I - oh." Tarkin's mind was reeling, completely absorbed. "But that's simply incredible. If it can show us our enemies anywhere in the galaxy - can it show other things? We could use this for espionage. Or reconnaissance. Or-" An inspired grin crossed his face. "Can it show us the Rebel base? Can you tell it to do that?"

Vader tried, but casting out for the Rebels was more difficult. They hadn't been to this moon, and Vader and Tarkin hadn't had many significant run-ins with them recently, although troops under Tarkin's command had. More importantly, they hadn't been the ones Vader and Tarkin were thinking of when they came in, and so the temple had not had time to develop much connection. Vader had an odd feeling - a suspicion that, with the temple's powers brought to bear in the correct way, even this would not be impossible - but he couldn't find the right thread to follow, couldn't grasp hold of anything, no matter how he reached out. After a minute or two of trying he ended up doubled up over the console, fighting another wave of nausea.

"All right," said Tarkin, hurrying to his side. "We don't have to eliminate the Rebellion today if that's not how this works. The pirates will suffice."

"I am fine," said Vader, shaking off the hand that Tarkin had extended to steady him. He needed his fucking meds, that was all.

Tarkin pursed his lips, but didn't argue. "Well, if we're aiming at the pirates, there they are. I still don't fully understand what this weapon _does,_ though, do you?"

Vader poked the display again, and a new window appeared to the side, with something that looked like an energy readout. Right now it showed the storm, which emanated from a point above the temple; it showed how the temple was maintaining it, in preparation for whatever it did next. Hexes and measurement lines overlaid it in a complicated pattern, labeled with technical terms whose meaning Vader could sometimes puzzle out and sometimes not.

Vader was the one who knew how to play with the guts of machines; but he was a hobbyist, and he didn't work with weapons at this scale. Tarkin did, if only in an administrative role. They would have to work together.

That was what they did, then, for many more long minutes. It wasn't terrible, and Vader let himself be absorbed by the puzzle. The aiming display responded to instructions through the Force, but the physical controls were different, and even Vader could not move them alone. After some experimentation it turned out that he and Tarkin had to adjust them together, their fingertips touching, both physically reaching out to pull a slider or turn a dial at the same time.

The weapon, as they gradually worked out, was to do with cold. In its current standby mode, which must have been triggered by Hondo and Neeva's arrival, it repetitively stirred the cold wind and the snowstorm outside. At its fullest it would make use of that energy in a more focused way; it would reach out with the Force to whoever was targeted and instantly freeze them to death. The controls could be used to determine the type of freezing: many targets or few; individual bodies frosted over or the whole ship encased in ice; blocky squarish crystals or feathery lattices; weak ice that would melt away quickly when its task was done, or a mindbending cold like the depths of space. Tarkin was delighted by the possibilities. It was nice, in Vader's misery, having someone happy nearby.

"It's an actual freeze ray," Tarkin remarked, amused. "There've been rumors about the Empire working on one of these for years. We aren't, of course. This is going to be splendid."

If Vader were alone, he would have impatiently dialed everything up to its highest level and fired. But Tarkin had finesse. He was thinking of the Tarkin Doctrine, and of what settings would cause the greatest fear to those observing their aftermath. He spent a long time fiddling, particularly with the interior structure of the crystals, and Vader let him take the reins, lending his own hands wherever Tarkin indicated. Tarkin seemed to prefer the designs that would look the most alien and foreboding, while still leaving their targets just this side of recognizable.

Finally, though, even Tarkin's attention to detail couldn't find anything that it wanted to improve.

"I think that's it, then," he said, turning to Vader with a look of nervous excitement. "I think these are the settings. Should I-?"

He glanced at the small dais, large enough for only a single person, reserved for the apprentice of their makeshift pairing, not the master.

"Yes," said Vader. "But - wait."

Tarkin raised an eyebrow. Vader felt an odd dread as he looked at him standing there, lean and strict and clever as always despite a certain soddenness. A sense that, if Vader did not work up his courage and say the difficult thing _now,_ he might lose his nerve forever.

"I remember what happened this morning," he said. "What I did to the pod, but also why. I do not know where that leaves us, once we are finished here. I cannot ask you to touch me again. I have protected you here as best I can, and I will do so until we are back on our ships. But we cannot continue as we have been. It is as I said, the first time, on Mustafar. I can only hurt you."

Tarkin took a long breath and sighed it out, his gaze wistfully fixed on Vader's. Vader could feel, in that look, enough to know what the answer would be. Tarkin hadn't given up hope yet, but he had wrestled with this very same thought.

"I'm glad that you recognize the problem now," he said at last. "That means we're on the same page, at least. It's true the way we've been going about it can't continue. But that's not a reason to abandon the whole relationship. Not if you still want me around. There might even be safer ways to go about touching you. It's just - it's going to require a longer conversation. Later. When we're both feeling better and have had some space to think, and aren't in the middle of a Sith temple that I'm still half-convinced wants to kill us. Can we plan on that?"

"As you wish," Vader said sullenly. He didn't know what else to say.

When they were out of this temple and had returned to the Imperial fleet, Vader would require medical attention. And Tarkin would be whisked off to whatever other duties required him. His career would come first, as ever. It was anyone's guess when Palpatine would allow them to have the talk he proposed.

But in the worst case, if they never had time for it, then that was the same as what Vader had just said, only slower. It wasn't any more than what Vader deserved.

"I'm not giving up on you, Vader," said Tarkin.

Then he turned and walked up the short steps to the dais, and Vader couldn't see what happened next.

*

Tarkin ascended the short flight of steps to the dais, breathless with anticipation. It was easy to shake off his other Vader-related concerns in the face of this thrilling task before him. Tarkin had fired fearsome weapons before, he'd ordered many exquisite forms of destruction over the years, but this was going to be special. This was what it meant to be reverent, surely: not only feeling the depth of the Force around oneself, but keeping that feeling in mind while one used it. Understanding, as one's hand found its mark among the controls, what an honor it truly was.

The mirror slab in front of him lit up red. He was fairly sure he understood the cue this time. This would hurt, but pain wouldn't detract from what it meant. He braced himself, reached out, and placed his hand flat against the stone.

Words appeared on the mirror, in thedark red, jaggedly written Basic that he recognized from the other room. **You are ready to fire?**

"Yes," said Tarkin.

**You are satisfied with your target?**

"Yes." It would have been nice to go even further, to destroy all the Empire's enemies in one fell swoop, if Vader and the temple had been capable. But he understood why that wasn't quite possible, and freezing the pirates in hyperspace would be spectacular enough. He was satisfied.

**Then let me tell you a secret,** said the temple.

Tarkin frowned. He kept his hand where it was, against the red.

**You do not have to do as your master says.**

Tarkin's frown deepened. Vader was his master as far as this temple was concerned, but he'd had no complaints thus far about Vader's orders. Vader had, in fact, given no orders but the ones necessary to keep both of them alive. If anyone needed to hear this so-called secret from a Sith temple, it was Vader himself.

**You have worked with him to choose a target,** said the temple. **But, if you wish, you may choose another now. He will not know.**

"That's good to know," said Tarkin, wondering what the temple was playing at. "But unless you can target the Rebel base for me, I'm quite satisfied with the pirates."

**Are you?** said the temple.** Search your feelings.**

An image swam into view, above his hand, on the red mirror's surface.

It wasn't the Rebel base. It was the interior of Palpatine's throne room. The Emperor sat speaking with a few courtiers and advisers in the gloom. It was impossible to tell what really went on in Palpatine's mind, but he seemed relaxed. Unconcerned. Unaware of the powerful weapon that even now had him in its sights. He did not look up.

Tarkin's heart pulsed in his throat.

He could do it. Here and now. He felt that power in the palm of his hand. If he wanted to overthrow the Emperor, he didn't need to work together with Vader. He could simply fire this weapon at him now. He could let the temple work its magic, and Palpatine would be instantly frozen to death in Dark Side ice. Vader would be freed. Vader would be Emperor, just as Tarkin had imagined, and they would rule together.

It would be as simple as saying a word and keeping his hand in place, and he wanted it. As badly as he'd ever wanted sex, or power, or the shiniest weapons. He could do it - if he was willing, here and now, to violate every oath he'd ever sworn.

Surely it couldn't be this easy. The Emperor could see the future and sense danger. Surely he sensed _something_ now, even if he didn't appear to. He must have some defense in place. This could be a trap, a final test of where Tarkin's loyalties lay.

But say for the sake of argument that it wasn't.

Say he pulled the trigger, and it worked.

He would be going over Vader's head, violating Vader's own wishes. Violating Sith tradition itself. But Vader would get over it, surely. It wasn't as though Vader _liked_ his master.

He would be going behind Vader's back, and he would be harming his own Empire, even as he inherited it all.

Governing territory on a galactic scale was a fiendishly complex job involving millions of variables, from military threats requiring the strongest response to political maneuvers of the greatest delicacy. One needed to think dozens of steps ahead of one's opponents in every arena. Nobody could compete with Palpatine, when it came to that; he had both the galaxy's most brilliant Intellect and the whole Dark Side.

Tarkin could do the job, of course. He'd done a similar one in the Outer Rim for over a decade. It would just be slightly less good.  Slightly less order and slightly more chaos. Slightly more losses against Rebels and pirates. Slightly more interplanetary disputes without proper solutions. Slightly more wasteful distributions of resources, slightly worse domestic policy, slightly more fracture and argument in the already-useless Senate, slightly worse  _everything. _ Everywhere.

Tarkin had always been aware of what hung in the balance as he went about his duties. His seemingly harmless indulgence with Vader had cost the lives of everyone on the _Overseer._ Saving Vader from Palpatine, over time, would cost much more.

Yet perhaps he could alleviate that cost. Tarkin could think strategically; Vader could sense intentions and see the future. They could work together; they'd have all of the galaxy's resources at their disposal. If they were diligent and thought carefully, their rule could be nearly as good. Perhaps so close that the difference couldn't be seen.

Tarkin didn't know how to weigh that "nearly," in the balance, for the whole galaxy; against the cost of watching Vader ground down further and further by the things his master did to him. It wasn't as though Vader wasn't outsized himself, as if his mental state didn't have galactic consequences of its own. Tarkin couldn't do this math. He didn't have the Force to guide him.

Vader had told him not to interfere. But Vader had said that out of fear. He hadn't known that interfering might be this quick and easy. Tarkin couldn't imagine Vader being pleased with him, if he came down from the dais and explained that he'd had the opportunity to end things cleanly with a word, and had chosen not to, because the functioning of the Empire came first.

But he couldn't imagine Vader being happy with the other option, either. Not at first. Vader viewed Palpatine as his own problem to endure. He wouldn't appreciate Tarkin going behind his back about it. He might even grieve. For all his faults, Palpatine was the central relationship in Vader's life, and his only connection to a spiritual heritage which clearly mattered to him.

He'd grieve, perhaps. But he'd get over it. There would be unfettered power over the whole galaxy waiting for him, after all.

Unfettered, except that political power wasn't even really a thing Vader wanted. Unfettered, except that he lacked the skills to exercise it properly. He'd need Tarkin for that.

Unfettered, except that the other problems would still be there, the intense past trauma, the misery his masters had conditioned him into. The inability to deal with Tarkin appropriately, the desperation and lack of self-regard behind his bluster, the willingness to harm himself if it was what Tarkin wanted, at a time when the functioning of their relationship would be more crucial to the galaxy than ever.

Unfettered, except that Tarkin would be there pointing out how best to _use _the power, how best to discern the galaxy's needs, how to behave both within their relationship and outside it. Tarkin knew himself too well. Taking over everything himself would be the real temptation, and in the end, he wouldn't manage to resist. It wasn't as though Vader had the skills to manage healthily on his own. He'd _need_ a master, if he lost the current one too soon.

And there was something awful deep in Tarkin's soul that thrilled to that knowledge. To the image of someone as fearsome as Vader, focused entirely on him, kneeling to him, forever.

His own boot coming down, as in the vision, on Vader's face.

_How do I fix him? _Tarkin had said to the temple, and it had replied, _You can't._ If he tried like this, he would only compound the harm.

The mirror still patiently displayed its image. Palpatine was lounging, seemingly defenseless, on his throne. A new adviser had entered and was now distracting the other two with some tidbit of news. Palpatine still didn't seem aware of anything amiss.

It would be so easy, even now, even knowing it was wrong. He would be happier this way than otherwise, despite the guilt. Vader might even be happier, slightly, in the end. If it was a choice between unwilling servitude to Palpatine and to Tarkin, Tarkin could hardly imagine he'd be _worse._

He took what felt like the longest, deepest breath he'd ever taken.

"No," he said to the mirror.

The word felt like a severing. It was more than just a command to this weapon. He was admitting, deep down, that this wasn't his problem to solve. He couldn't look Vader in his unmasked face and urge him to think more critically about Palpatine, to protect himself better, to edge up ever closer towards that moment of necessary rebellion. Not after this. Not while remembering that he himself could have solved it in a moment, and had declined. He would have to let it all go. Vader would make his own choices, and Tarkin would let him.

**As you wish, **said the mirror. The image of Palpatine swam and resolved again into an image that matched the display below. The pirate ships, hurtling through hyperspace; the pirate encampment, on this very planet, huddled under the raging storm.

This was still victory. It was what he'd come here for. He tried to feel victorious.

"Fire," he said.

And the feeling he'd had so briefly in the previous room, the feeling of the Dark Side immanent and powerful in the palms of his hands, blazed and swallowed him completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did I say 4 chapters in the temple? I meant 4 and a half. hang in there, we're almost out <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which help arrives just in time; travel-related snap decisions are made; there are cuddles for body heat, followed by medical treatment and blankets and tea, and Tarkin spins his story for the media; but first, the Sith temple has one last evil trick up its sleeve.

Vader couldn't quite see the flickering images that appeared to Tarkin on his dais, or hear the muttered words with which Tarkin responded. There was some unexpected anguish in him; Vader could feel that even through the vicious howl of the temple's mind. But if it was important then Tarkin would get off the damn dais and tell him about it. Vader was in too much pain to think about it beyond that.

Padmé had settled down beside him, of course. That was just how things were going today.

He could no longer focus enough to make the unsettling flickers in her form go away, even if he fixed as hard as he could on one spot. She was a blur of flame and wires and static, nothing right in her anywhere, yet the shape of her was still recognizable. Her voice was precisely the voice he remembered.

"It's almost over," she said.

"For you," he retorted.

The temple didn't care what happened to Vader next. She didn't care if rescue came quickly or slowly, or at all. She wanted to be used, and then she wanted to go back to sleep until the next pair woke her. It must be nice, Vader thought, getting to rest so deeply and thoroughly between tasks.

"You've been so brave," said Padmé. She leaned forward, nearly into him. He could see down the top of her dress. Just gray and blur and molten rock, all the way down. "Just focus on me. You'll feel better when it's done."

The _you,_ in that first sentence, was the plural.

The other was the singular.

Vader lurched to his feet. He suddenly understood what this was. Why this temple allowed a wider variety of pairs of worshipers than any other. Why Tarkin, after all of this emphasis on the strength of their pairing, had to do the final part alone.

The ancient Sith Empire had possessed thousands of Sith, after all, and millions of their Force-insensitive subjects. A good number of those subjects, however emotionally valued by their masters, were in some sense expendable.

_Sacrifice,_ those words on the wall had said. And it wouldn't be a proper sacrifice, wouldn't raise the powerful feelings that sacrifice was supposed to, if it wasn't something that belonged to him. Something he valued. Something he'd go through all the rest of the hell of these tunnels and tests to protect.

He lunged for the dais.

*

Tarkin felt something that he could not properly classify as pain. It was hardly a sensation. An immaterial energy, as unreal to his senses as thought, moving through him. It consumed him. It was entirely overwhelming.

The temple made a sound like the engines of a Super Star Destroyer. It lit up, in channels previously hidden along those arched walls' creases. The holo-table had mostly been green, and the glowing words in the other words had been red, but these, now, were columns of a piercing blue-white, like the brightest snow-filled sky. They converged at the peak of the ceiling, swirling, glowing. Reaching out.

He felt the energy sucked from him, and from the storm that had been raised outside. He felt it directed where he had agreed it would go. He saw the pirates, but not merely on the display. They were in his head and all around him, as real as a vision, moving, screaming.

He watched as each individual pirate body, each miniscule component of each of their ships and shelters, burst into a fan of jagged icicles. A cold white steam rose from them. The faces froze last, giving them time for one last panicked look around, one last shriek as they failed to understand what was happening.

The ships' very engines froze, and one by one they dropped out of hyperspace, careening inertly into the void.

There was a violent noise behind him, but it didn't seem to matter. Not in comparison to the strange feeling suffusing his being. He felt Vader's gloved hand, suddenly and heavily, on his back.

He couldn't move. He couldn't imagine why Vader had come up here. He couldn't even really think clearly enough to care. The energy pouring through him had changed; it was truly pouring _through_ him, now, not merely out of him. He neither knew nor cared what that might mean.

At last everything the weapon wanted to do was done. The vision ended. The blue-white lights faded, and he slumped to the dais's floor, seeing spots. The mirror no longer glowed red. The display table had reverted to its first state. He heard, more than saw, the final door to the outside grinding open.

They were finished. What an odd experience that had been. He wanted to laugh, but he could scarcely remember where his lungs were.

This was what the Dark Side was like. Strange intense things, feelings too eldritch to be named, and power, such power and destruction. Tarkin supposed he liked it.

"Idiot," said Vader's voice, tight and labored in the sudden darkness. "It would have killed you."

Tarkin blinked, and attempted to push himself upright. "What?"

"It would have drained your life's energy to power itself. I figured it out too late."

That did not make sense to Tarkin, but he was aware he wasn't thinking very clearly. He made a second attempt at sitting up, this one partly successful. He rubbed the last of the spots from his eyes.

Vader had collapsed. He held himself on the steps in a semi-crouch, similar to Tarkin's own exhausted posture. TArkin wished he knew how to read the information on Vader's indicator panel, to see just how dire the current medical situation was and in what ways.

"But... the weapon went off," Tarkin said blearily. "Didn't it?"

"Yes."

"And I'm alive."

He put a hand to his face to make sure. His face seemed solid, though his hands were cold, and the fingertips still mostly numb. He patted down to his own throat. He could feel his pulse, steady and physical and real. Alive, then, yes.

What Vader was saying made a horrible kind of sense, now that he thought of it. Tarkin had felt energy pouring out of him, and then-

Then Vader had grabbed him, and the energy had not come out of him anymore, but _through._

"Oh, no," he said. He twisted around and reached out to pat at Vader, stupidly, panicked, as if there was even a pulse to feel through all that armor. "No. Vader. _Vader. _No."

"I will live," said Vader, clumsily batting him away. "What it took will regrow. This form of energy exists in different amounts for different people. Generated by... midichlorians, and... things. You have less of it than average." His breath was as mechanically steady as always, but his voice sounded strained, as if he could barely keep enough control to speak. "But... I have... _considerably_ more."

That might be so. But Vader had been very unwell before this happened, and now he looked worse, barely able to hold himself up.

Tarkin addressed the arched ceiling. "I did warn you I'd bomb you from orbit in this scenario."

Vader sounded sourly amused. "She is dormant now. She can no longer hear you."

"Well, in that case, I have a number of _other_ things-" Tarkin started, but Vader doubled over, there on the steps, and he was distracted away from further ranting. He crept down the steps, shakily stood, and extended a hand. "Let's get you out of this accursed building, shall we? This way."

Vader struggled to his feet. He stumbled every couple of steps, but with Tarkin's hands out to steady him, they managed to hobble slowly in the right direction. Towards that last door, which looked out on a field of ice and snow under a suddenly-calm blue sky.

The blue-green crescent of Hethea hung above them, and the outer cold bit at Tarkin's face and hands. He'd discarded his blankets in that entrance room, and now he had nothing left to shield him. The windchill was gone, and the temperature only a little below freezing, but without winter gear, survival time out there would be measurable in hours. But Tarkin didn't know how long it would be before this outer door shut again and permanently trapped anyone who'd stayed inside. At this point, honestly, he preferred the cold. They could make some kind of shelter out of the snow, maybe.

They passed through the door. They were higher up the snow-covered hillside now than when they'd entered. There was a good view, and the first few feet were sheltered by a black stone ledge. Tarkin shivered slightly in the still air, and the transmitter at his belt gave a small, weak _ping._ Getting a signal again, though not much of one. Another excellent reason not to stay inside the temple.

Vader gently slumped to sit on the frozen ground.

Tarkin crouched next to him. "We're out of the temple, Vader. We've just got to wait for rescue now. Are you still with me?"

"Yes," said Vader, but his voice was faint and strained.

There was static on the transmitter, suddenly, and a garbled voice Tarkin couldn't quite identify. His attention was immediately diverted. "I'm going to go out where there's better reception. I'll be back."

He didn't wait to hear Vader's reply before striding out from under the ledge, strained with hope.

"-if you can read this, Lord Vader, Governor Tarkin, Commander Martagon or any other surviving crew of the _Overseer,_ come in-"

It was the voice of an officer unknown to him, with a well-bred Coruscanti accent, emanating the worried boredom of a single officer in a large, spread-out search party. It sounded as though they'd been scouring the area for a while before anyone emerged.

Tarkin flicked the transmitter's microphone on. He wanted to sag completely into a puddle with relief, but he stood straight. "This is Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. I read you."

"This is Corporal Madner of the _Executor_, sir. We've been searching for you and the _Overseer_. What's your status?"

"Mine? Rather cold and in need of transport, but alive. Lord Vader is with me, but he urgently requires medical attention. I can confirm as an eyewitness that the _Overseer_ was destroyed; if anyone else survived, I'm not aware of it."

He heard the telltale clicks of Corporal Madner frantically operating his comms console and alerting the rest of the crew to this news. "Copy that, sir. We're sending a shuttle and a medic team now. What's the nature of Lord Vader's medical emergency?"

"Well, he's been without food or medicine since end of shift last night, and his suit's physical integrity has been breached. I'm told no essential life support was damaged, but some of his skin is exposed and looks frostbitten. He's showing signs of intense pain and fatigue, and I have reason to believe he's also been subjected to some sort of Force energy drain. At the moment he's responsive but can walk only with difficulty. Can you read our coordinates?"

"Yes, sir. The shuttle's on its way. Permission to patch you through to Admiral Ozzel."

"Granted," said Tarkin, beginning to pace.

There was a burst of static, and then the Admiral's voice came ringing over the transmitter. Tarkin had a passing acquaintance with Ozzel from his previous visits to the _Executor_. "Governor Tarkin, sir. Pleased to hear you're alive."

Tarkin smiled slightly. He got a kick out of it when admirals had to "sir" him. "The pleasure is mine. I assume Imperial High Command has requested a debrief as to what happened to the _Overseer._"

"Yes, sir; we'll have a longer one when you're aboard, but it'd be good to know whatever you can tell me now. Throws things into a bit of disarray when a Grand Moff and a Sith Lord disappear."

Yes, it would be good for Imperial High Command to have their story straight as soon as possible. It would also be advantageous for Admiral Ozzel, politically, if he was the one who was able to tell them first. "You're aware the _Overseer_ was on a highly sensitive mission for the Emperor."

"Yes, sir."

"As it happened, we were attacked by pirates on the fringes of this system. Members of Crimson Dawn. The _Overseer_ was destroyed through superior firepower. Lord Vader and I took an escape pod to Hethea 1's surface, where we managed to eliminate the criminals responsible. Beyond that, I'll be reserving the details for when I'm able to make my report to the Emperor himself. Aspects of this mission are Classification Level C-13."

Admiral Ozzel sounded grouchy with that, but really, Tarkin had given him more than he'd needed to. Level C-13 was a classification level that was technically only assigned by the Emperor for certain private ceremonial matters, but in this context it roughly translated as_ Sith nonsense, you wouldn't believe me if I told you._ "Understood, sir. The _Sovereign_ is currently in orbit around Llue. We'll transfer you there as quickly as we can."

"No need, Admiral," said Tarkin, making a snap decision. "Prepare a room for me on the _Executor_. I'll be accompanying Lord Vader to Mustafar."

By standard protocol, Tarkin would be expected to board the Sovereign and head for Coruscant immediately. There were things to do, reports to make, panics caused by his brief disappearance that would need to be soothed. Imperial High Command would need his official accounting for the fate of the borrowed corvette. Work came first; the galaxy came first; Tarkin _knew_ that. An injured lover - one who had his own expert doctors, thank you very much - didn't weigh much balanced against the needs of the whole galaxy. Particularly not for a Grand Moff like Tarkin, who was already known for poor judgment regarding his lovers.

Tarkin had only a few minutes ago turned down the most tempting opportunity for treason that he'd ever encountered, and Vader had nearly died protecting him. Balance be damned. Tarkin had done  _enough_ for the blasted galaxy.

He wanted to do something for Vader now.

The admiral's poise faltered for a single, small, telling moment. Tarkin's relationship with Vader was still a mild scandal. It would always be a scandal, because Vader was exotic and people were prurient. But it wasn't the kind that could hurt either one of them, not like the one with Natasi. People would say things, but their words wouldn't matter.

"Acknowledged, sir," said Admiral Ozzel. "Do you have other orders for the _Sovereign?_"

"Have them continue the search if there's believed to be any chance of finding other survivors. In the meantime, tell them that approximately half a mile from here there will be a former pirate encampment which is now in _remarkable_ condition. Divert a small team from the search to visually document the remains."

Admiral Ozzel sounded uncertain now. He'd likely assumed that the pirates were dead by the usual method - caught flat-footed by a rampaging Vader, and killed by telekinesis or lightsaber. The results of such massacres were not usually broadcast to the public. "Yes, sir."

"Ensure by some reasonable means that the images are leaked to the media, and that anonymous sources from within the military are consulted for comment. Make it known that the individuals affected were members of Crimson Dawn who'd attempted to set up operations in the Seswenna sector, and that-" He paused. It was tempting to be boastful, to take all the credit himself and put the fear of his name back into the sector. But that often wasn't the most effective way to spread paranoia. "That the Empire neither confirms nor denies any knowledge of what occurred."

He smiled to himself imagining the faces Ozzel might be making. Ozzel knew the Tarkin Doctrine as everyone did, and he was now undoubtedly wondering just what sort of visually spectacular Sith nonsense had just taken place while he ran search-and-rescue. "Acknowledged, sir."

"If you can spare a second small team, have them investigate the realspace around the Rimma route near Sluis Van, looking for any derelict pirate craft. If they find anything visually similar to what's found on this moon, I want it documented in the same way. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"I want to be messaged immediately when it's done. I'll be receiving messages on Mustafar as much as I can."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

He wanted to say, _Yes, Admiral. My present coordinates are the site of a building, unrelated to the pirates. Turn the _Executor_'s concussion missiles on it as soon as Lord Vader and I are aboard._ But he didn't actually have the authority to order that. Sith relics at this scale were solely the Emperor's purview, and if Tarkin wanted one destroyed, he'd have to file a formal request. He'd do that, he promised himself, soon.

"Ensure my aides on Coruscant are aware I'm alive. That will be all. Tarkin out."

*

Vader waited, sitting on the ground under the overhang. His head swam. They weren't in the temple anymore. Tarkin had gone somewhere close by, and when he returned they were supposed to go somewhere else, but Vader couldn't remember where. There was snow around him and it was very cold. He could feel the cold inside his suit, which upset him. But his limbs were on fire and if he moved them to shield himself, it would not go well.

He turned his head, watching Tarkin as he paced, but his muscles were tense with the cold. His neck spasmed and sent a fucking awful twinge all the way down his body, pushing him past the point of nausea.

Vader doubled over and heaved. His emergency valve opened, but nothing came out, even liquid. How long had it been since Vader took in fluids? Fuck. The cold of the outside air burned at the inside of his stomach, for a second or two, before his suit shut itself again.

When he had recovered himself, he saw Tarkin returning, with the transmitter held carelessly low at his side. He'd finished all that talking, then.

"That was the _Executor,_ Vader," Tarkin said. "They're sending a shuttle down with a medic team. How are you feeling? We only need to hold out a few more minutes."

Vader couldn't figure out how to answer. He was very dizzy. Tarkin reached down and took a hold of one of his gloved hands. Vader squeezed back, to show he was paying attention. He felt strangely guilty. Wasn't Tarkin not supposed to touch him anymore? Vader thought so, but he couldn't muster up the energy to really care.

He could feel, though, that Tarkin was cold. He didn't need any special connection to pick up on that. There was snow all around them; shouldn't Tarkin have a coat? He was shivering.

"You are cold," Vader croaked out.

"_I'm_ cold? Vader, you're-" Tarkin paused and reined in whatever his complaint had been. His teeth had begun to chatter as he hugged himself in his sodden uniform. "Yes, actually, I'm a bit cold. Let's keep warm together, shall we?"

He crouched carefully, lowering himself to sit next to Vader. He was on the same side as the breach in Vader's armor, but he kept well clear of the breach itself. He leaned closer until his weight rested against an intact part of Vader's side. Then he picked up Vader's cape and pulled it sideways, so that it wrapped around the both of them like a blanket: over Tarkin's vulnerable hands and the lower half of his face, but also over the exposed part of Vader's skin, which he was still careful not to touch directly. He bent his gray head and rested it gingerly against Vader's shoulderplate.

"I'm here, Vader," he murmured. "Help's on its way. Stay with me."

Vader had an urge to wrap his arm tightly around Tarkin's narrow frame, hold him there like an anchor. Moving his arms hurt too much, though. He managed to raise his hand as far as Tarkin's hip before his nausea rose again, threateningly, and he gave up.

He _was_ here with Tarkin, though. The feel of Tarkin's mind, so close by, helped ground him. He was thinking a little more clearly now than when Tarkin had been pacing outside. Vader remembered how they'd gotten here, what the plan was.

He had hated himself for getting to Tarkin a second too late, when the weapon was already in operation; he hadn't been able to stop the first part of the damage. But, in the way of the Force, he suspected that he had been perversely on time. A few seconds earlier, and the weapon wouldn't have fired at all, and then they'd have had to figure out some other way out of the building. A few seconds later, and Tarkin would be dead. A single second earlier, and Vader might have gotten to Tarkin after the weapon had locked in but before calibration was finished. Then it might have opened itself wide enough to take everything from them both

Vader's timing had kept them alive, if a bit the worse for wear. The temple had played fair, in her way. She'd simply wanted to be used, and her use required the sacrifice of a person-sized amount of life. Vader's way of doing it had not been what she usually preferred, but it had satisfied her needs. She hadn't been unhappy, as her destructive force unleashed itself, as her waking consciousness ebbed away.

He almost wished it were otherwise. If he'd felt a pulse of thwarted rage, if that whirling dark consciousness under her human facade had spent its last few moments keening hate and despair, then he could have felt pleased with himself for besting her. But she hadn't said a thing. She hadn't even tried to stop him.

She was dormant now, though. Vader suspected he wouldn't be conscious much longer, either. He wasn't even going to remember much of this in the morning.

And that was satisfying, oddly. If he wasn't going to remember this moment tomorrow, then there was space for him to think, very quietly and carefully, about the other thing he knew.

He'd felt something, deep in Tarkin's mind, as he overrode the temple's mechanisms.  He knew that the temple had secretly offered Tarkin another target. She had offered Tarkin Palpatine. And Tarkin - longing, conflicted, wishing it  _could_ be as easy as pulling a trigger - had declined.

It was good that he had declined. Vader could be satisfied, now, that Tarkin was safe. If he hadn't turned against Palpatine tonight, while full of Dark Side recklessness and faced with such a temptation, then he never would.

But, for just one single moment, Vader tried to imagine what would happen if Tarkin said, _yes._

He imagined, over-optimistically, that Tarkin had said yes and it had _worked._ No Palpatine ever again, just like that. Just him and Tarkin and the Empire at their feet.

He thought: _Wouldn't that be nice._

He could think it now, because he wouldn't remember thinking it tomorrow. Palpatine couldn't pry it from his head if he didn't remember. Vader let himself think it, and then he sealed it up where no one would ever find it again. He gave in to exhaustion, and he let his thoughts dissolve.

*

Tarkin was still huddled up under Vader's cape when the _Lambda_-class shuttle descended from the sky. He raised his head, but didn't immediately distance himself from Vader. Let people stare. They couldn't harm him.

Vader was barely responsive, though. He'd stopped speaking, and he moved only when prodded a bit. Tarkin didn't have to be a medic to know that was a bad sign.

The shuttle's ramp descended, and a group of technicians in cold-weather gear hurried out with a float pallet. Tarkin stepped out of the way and let them do their job. He raised himself, stiff and shivering, to his full height, while the technicians prodded Vader onto the pallet. These were the _Executor_'s own medical technicians; they were trained in how to handle a wounded Darth Vader. He resisted the temptation to bark his own orders at them as everyone hurried back aboard.

In the back of the shuttle stood a proper Imperial medic, who quickly took over barking the orders herself. They'd brought a few of Vader's boxes of medicine onto the shuttle, and there was a general flurry of activity of which Tarkin understood only the basics. The technicians rhymed off jargon in the machine language that panel on Vader's abdomen used, nudged and spoke to him to determine his responsiveness, jabbered back and forth about diagnostic scales. The ranking medic periodically called out the names of different medicines and fluid packs from the boxes, which were deftly inserted into ports in the suit: the same ones where Tarkin had seen Vader, more casually and furtively, load what he needed for the night.

There was a brief back-and-forth as to what to do about the frostbitten patch of skin. Tarkin stepped forward a little, wanting to be of some use. "I'd advise caution. He, ah, can become violent if he's touched on that part of his skin."

The chief medic's eyes flicked to him, then back to Vader. "How's the sedative?"

The technicians rattled back a series of incomprehensible numbers. Tarkin understood the implication: Vader had been mostly unconscious already, but his medical team weren't taking any chances. If he was genuinely unconscious, it was probably safe.

As the buzz of activity around Vader waned, one of the med techs, a younger male, pulled Tarkin aside. "Sir, the rules of triage dictate that we see to Lord Vader first, but you're aware that, when we're aboard the Super Star Destroyer, you'll need medical attention as well."

Tarkin tossed his head irritably. He hated sick bays, but he couldn't convincingly argue against them while shivering.

They boarded, and Vader was whisked off immediately to whatever absurd pressurized operating room they used for these things here, while Tarkin was marched to a smaller room with a different medic. He was instructed to disrobe completely and did so, leaving his damp and filthy uniform in a pile in the room's corner. He accepted the medical gown he was given in return with marginally less bad grace than his usual. At least the medical gown wasn't damp.

As soon as he was in the gown and sitting where he was supposed to, a droid wrapped a warm blanket around his shoulders. It was the same thin black standard-issue design that had been packed in the escape pod, and he shrugged against it irritably. "Not another damned blanket."

"Sir?" said the human medic blandly, raising his eyebrows.

Tarkin sighed. "Never mind." The blanket was as dry and toasty as if it had just come out of the _Executor_'s laundering rooms. He furtively pulled it closer around himself.

The medic seemed to accept this as an answer. His manner was brisk and efficient, which was what Tarkin preferred when it came to medics. He took out a diagnostic device and began scanning Tarkin's body. "I've been told the account of how you ended up on this moon, but I'd like to know any medically significant events that might have been left out of that account, and any symptoms you're currently experiencing."

Tarkin grumpily held still. "Little enough, really. I've been very cold and there's some numbness in extremities. I did walk for some time through a snowstorm without proper cold-weather gear, but Lord Vader and I had adequate shelter for the majority of our time on the ice moon. I didn't sleep much, but I doubt that's medically significant. Apart from the cold, I also experienced a couple of Force effects I'd rather not describe. Classification Level 13-C, as they say. I'm not sure if they'll show up on your instruments, but I've been informed they'll wear off."

"Hm," said the medic, and he peered a little closer into his diagnostic device. The _Executor_'s staff, at least, could be trusted to take reports of mysterious Force effects in stride. "That matches what I'm seeing. I'm, ah - required to ask, there's some hand-shaped bruising at your hips and lower back, as if someone grabbed hold of you-"

"Consensually," said Tarkin, staring him down.

The medic raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment further. He did a final pass with his diagnostic device. "Well, it looks like this is all very treatable. You've got a touch of hypothermia, first-degree frostbite in fingers and facial extremities, and the beginnings of what could have been an immersion foot syndrome if you'd let it go much longer. You'll also be fighting off a rhinovirus over the next few days. But we've caught them all early enough that they'll be easy to deal with. Those Force effects are my one real concern. I'm seeing some slight effects neurologically which my diagnostic scanner can't track to any physical cause. Without divulging classified information, can you tell me anything about these experiences that might be medically relevant?"

"One involved an energy drain," said Tarkin. "Similar to the one Lord Vader experienced, but I believe less severe. The other was a mind probe of sorts. My emotional temperament was temporarily altered. I've been informed they'll both wear off."

"That's consistent with what I'm seeing," said the medic, poking a few buttons on his scanner. "None of it looks dangerous in the short term, but we'll want to keep an eye on it until it resolves. You're disembarking on Mustafar?"

"Yes."

"The droid there does good work, and she's familiar with mystically-induced injuries. You'll want a follow-up with her, both for this and for the frostbite. May I forward your file?"

"Yes, go ahead," said Tarkin, waving a hand irritably.

The medic turned to the larger console at his desk and tapped a few buttons. "That's it for me, then. I'm going to get a droid in here to treat your frostbite and your feet, and to get some antihistamines from the dispensary. When that's done and your core temperature's restored to proper levels, you'll be free to go. Did you have any other concerns?"

"No," said Tarkin, and then, inconveniently, he sneezed.

The medic strode out. The droid who replaced him was quiet and deferential, as befitted a 2-1B unit. It had a mug of something in its right hand that looked enticingly like tea, and a bucket in its left which looked more like water.

Tarkin took the mug. It turned out to be an uncaffeinated herbal tea - not Tarkin's favorite, but warm at least. It felt good going down, and he washed down a couple of antihistamines with it. The droid placed the bucket down at his feet, and then indicated for him to soak them. He did so, and found that the treated water was very warm and pleasant, if a bit too antiseptic in its smell.

The droid's treatment for Tarkin's hands and face seemed to consist of a lot of poking around with a hot compress, which it alternated with brief jabs of a nerve stimulator. At first it felt like mostly nothing - he was numb there, after all - and then abruptly sensation did return, in one spot after another, in the form of searing and lingering pain. The same pain stole up more gradually in the soles of his feet, too. He flexed his toes in irritation; with everything else going on, he hadn't even realized they were numb.

Eventually, the droid decided it had removed all the numbness it needed to, and it wrapped a set of thin bandages around the affected fingers to keep them from sticking together. Then it pulled Tarkin's feet from the bucket, dried them, and applied a soft powder.

Apart from the pain of certain nerves reacting, this form of medical treatment wasn't terrible. It was one of Tarkin's better stays in a sickbay, although he'd still rather have been in his quarters.

He wondered how Vader was doing. Likely much worse than this.

"What's Lord Vader's status?" he asked the droid offhand.

"He is being treated, sir," said the droid.

"I mean his prognosis."

"You can ask him yourself when he's awake, sir."

"And when will that be?"

"Tomorrow, sir, most likely."

At last the droid handed him a folded uniform. "Your quarters are prepared, sir, along with your dinner," it said, and gave him a coordinate. "When you've dressed, you're free to go."

"Where are the boots?" Tarkin asked, dismayed. The uniform was mostly correct; it even had a Grand Moff's insignia pin. But rather than regulation footwear it came with a pair of thick, moisture-wicking socks and appallingly soft fuzzy slippers. The slippers were a tasteful dove-gray which matched the rest of the uniform, but their level of fuzziness wasn't tasteful at all. Fuzz spilled off their surface and hung down towards the floor in some horrible angora texture. It was like being asked to wear a cooing baby animal on his feet.

"Your feet were slightly affected by cold exposure," the droid placidly explained. "You're not presently cleared to wear boots. There is a ninety percent likelihood you'll be cleared for them after your next checkup on Mustafar."

"These cannot possibly be Imperial regulation equipment-" Tarkin started, but the droid just looked at him and rattled off the precise medical regulations and inventory numbers connected to this specific pair of slippers. He reluctantly dressed; it felt wrong to put a new, crisp uniform on when the skin below it still badly needed cleaning, but he'd need to wear clothes in order to get to his quarters, and he'd need to get to his quarters to properly shower, so the logic was inescapable. He grimaced as he stuffed his feet into the slippers, not because it hurt, but because he was embarrassed to admit how very comfortable they were.

That done, he padded to his assigned quarters. It was a tidy space fitted out for perhaps a captain: less than what Tarkin was accustomed to, but forgivable, given the short notice. There was a bunk to lie in, and a desk, and a private fresher.

On the desk someone had left a standard-issue datapad and a box of rations. Tarkin's personal datapad and all its important work-related files had been destroyed with the _Overseer._ They were all backed up back on Coruscant, of course, but until he returned there he'd have to make do with logging in to the standard network and accessing only his basic communications.

He decided on shower first, dinner and datapad afterwards. Shower water was rationed here even for senior officers, but there was a sonic scrubber to augment its effects, and Tarkin had long ago learned the tricks of maximizing that setup for the best washing-up experience. He turned the water up as hot as it would go, and emerged a few minutes later feeling much improved. His fingers, nose, and feet still ached a little, but the initial pain had mostly subsided by now.

He unpacked the box of rations next. A self-heating bowl of noodles with vegetables and meat; some crisp and salty crackers; a hunk of dried fruit; a bite-sized, packaged dessert; and, most delightful of all, a pair of actual tea bags. He boiled some water and set one of them steeping immediately. The rest of the box was nothing special - shipboard rations never were - but far better than this morning's potato bar. He ate it quickly and with relish, then turned to the datapad.

Basic communications, it turned out, were plenty to deal with on their own. He could access from here all the hundreds of messages that had been directed his way in his absence. It surprised him how difficult it was to focus on them: they blurred together in a manner that wasn't typical for Tarkin, even given this level of exhaustion. He contented himself with a single, terse missive to his top aides, confirming that he was in fact alive but wouldn't be returning to Coruscant for a few more days, and in the meantime could they kindly continue to hold off complaints and reschedule meetings, et cetera.

It was freeing, in an odd way, exercising that power. Officials as high-ranking as Tarkin almost always had the ability to put off work, if they really wanted to. But he had so rarely_ used_ that ability, even for family's sake. It always left little eddies of chaos in its wake. It felt reckless.

Tarkin couldn't overthrow the Empire for Vader's sake, but he could learn to do these small reckless things. And Vader could learn to temper his recklessness a little. They'd meet in the middle, that way.

He made a mental note to try his datapad again in the morning. It might be fine by then, and if not, he'd inform a medic. But until such time, he'd assume that it was a temporary combination of exhaustion and the Force, and possibly the antihistamines, and it would improve with a good rest.

Tarkin finished his tea, then turned off the datapad, made a last visit to the fresher, and got into his bunk. His body, he discovered, was _delighted_ to be in a proper bunk. The bedclothes encircled him like the arms of a lover, and he closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to adalric and randomInternetWeirdo who both REALLY wanted to see huddling for warmth. It's a shipfic on an ice moon, what do you take me for, of course there's huddling :D Also for randomInternetWeirdo pointing out that I've set things up for a Tarkin and slippers joke several times now in this series but never followed through. Totally my bad. He's got them now.
> 
> Meanwhile, Theory Of How Hondo Ohnaka Survived This Bullshit:  
\- Vader uncharacteristically botched the Force choke and left him unconscious-but-alive, maybe Weequays are unusually hard to strangle, maybe Vader's just not feeling it today, idk  
\- The freeze ray didn't target him because Vader forgot to tell Tarkin that according to the display he wasn't dead yet, and Tarkin was focused on the much-more-spectacular dual target of the pirate encampment and their ships in hyperspace.  
\- So at some point he woke up and saw that some doors were open in the temple that hadn't previously been open and of course he ran all the fucking way out of there immediately.  
\- He probably went back to where he left his ship and found to his dismay that it was freeze-rayed into inoperability, but luckily, just then, the Imperial team that was supposed to take pictures of the frozen ships showed up and he fast-talked them into giving him a ride, possibly while under arrest.
> 
> Hondo's a lucky bastard, basically. No other pirate would have survived this fic.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader pretends he's not embarrassed to be carried around on a stretcher; Tarkin forgets to keep Vader apprised of his plans; M4-R3K is full of salt; and there is an unexpected message from the Emperor.

Tarkin woke up to the sound of his comm link beeping and nearly panicked, for a half second, before he got his bearings. It was not an alarm, just a regular message. No one was under attack. He was in a comfortable bunk in an underwhelming but adequate set of officer's quarters aboard the _Executor_, and someone was ringing his comm link to tell him-

He flicked it on. "Tarkin here."

"Sir, we'll be arriving in orbit around Mustafar in twenty minutes. At that point, your shuttle will be ready immediately."

"Acknowledged."

He flicked the comm link back off, pushed himself up blearily to sit, and examined the room. Some droid had removed his uniform during the night and replaced it with a new, even-cleaner, pressed and folded one. Those embarrassing slippers were still part of it, though. He was about to disembark on a lava planet, so he had to hope all that fluff wasn't a fire hazard.

By the time the _Executor_ reached its destination, he'd managed to have his morning tea - was it morning? His datapad reported that it was early afternoon, which did not make sense. He might have slept much longer than he thought, or perhaps boarded the ship much earlier, but it was more likely that the _Executor_ was set to a diurnal cycle that matched neither Hethea 1's nor Mustafar's, and that, therefore, the time on his datapad was a total irrelevancy.

In any case, in twenty minutes he'd had some tea and antihistamines, put on his uniform, scrounged up a couple of shore-leave-appropriate changes of clothes, and successfully made his way to the hangar bay, where Vader and a _Lambda_-class shuttle waited.

According to Imperial protocol, anytime Vader entered or left an Imperial vessel, he was entitled to an honor guard. But it was mildly absurd, somehow, to see the honor guard assembled while Vader still rested on a float pallet. He looked more alert, at least, than when Tarkin had last seen him. His suit was still visibly broken, but the hole in the underlayer had been stitched back together. He was sitting up on the pallet and looking around; he held his head so high that it looked slightly exaggerated, as if he was trying too hard. The med techs guiding the pallet had adopted a similarly comical stance, marching as proud and correct as if it had been a royal palanquin and not an unfortunately necessary medical device.

Tarkin fell into a relaxed march at the back of that procession, and Vader looked briefly back at him. Vader froze, for the smallest moment, in a double take.

Oh. In all the confusion, Tarkin had neglected to _tell_ Vader he'd invited himself to Mustafar. Well, he hoped Vader didn't have any violent aversion to the plan.

Vader didn't say anything until they were loaded into the shuttle's interior. The smaller craft floated out of the hangar with its usual grace, beginning its descent through Mustafar's smoke-choked upper atmosphere. It was dim inside, and the med techs parked the float pallet toward the back of the shuttle, removing themselves to an area near the front. This gave Vader and Tarkin a bit of privacy to talk, so long as they kept their voices down.

"I did not expect you to be here," Vader said at last.

"Well, I am. It didn't feel right, abandoning you without a goodbye."

"I assumed you would have work to do."

Tarkin sighed. "I do, of course. But the world won't end if I do some of it remotely from your fortress. We were supposed to have a visit, and although these aren't the terms of visitation that we hoped for, I still intend for us to have one."

"It will not be an enjoyable visit," Vader warned. "The team on the _Executor_ stabilized me, but I need Em-four and an extended stay in my bacta tank. I will be asleep for most of the next few days. You certainly cannot touch me, and my powers will be weak until I recover. I will not be able to enjoy you as we are accustomed."

"That's fine," Tarkin said lightly. "I know you're not well, and I fully expect I'll spend most of my time alone in your meeting room. I did hope there'd be time to have the first part of the conversation we said we'd have, about safety and strategies, if you're up for that. I wanted to speak to Em-four as well. But I won't require anything strenuous. Mainly, I wanted to ensure you were all right."

Vader looked down, in the grip of some emotion - embarrassment or gratitude or distress, Tarkin couldn't tell which one. "Those slippers do not suit you."

"They are apparently medically required."

"How unfortunate for you."

They didn't say much else as the shuttle continued its journey down through the smoky clouds and over the burning plains. Vader seemed grateful for the quiet, and the med techs knew better than to intrude. After a few minutes, he reached and took Tarkin's hand. Tarkin squeezed back, silently twining his fingers through Vader's.

"I do not remember how we left the ice moon," Vader said at last.

Tarkin looked over at him cautiously. He suspected there were some things they shouldn't discuss in front of others. "Do you remember the weapon?"

"Yes."

"And - how it fired?"

Tarkin was not an expert on Sith doctrines, but he was fairly sure that self-sacrifice was against Vader's religion. Yet Vader had done it immediately, unthinkingly, when the opportunity appeared.

_I will not allow anything to harm you,_ Vader had vowed on Scarif, and of course he'd meant it. Tarkin had known, even at the time, that he meant it. It had felt over-broad and condescending, as if Tarkin was some wilting civilian in constant need of rescue, but he'd known that it wasn't a lie. Vader had saved him so many times on this mission, with the same brave reckless power that Vader brought to everything else.

Had he stopped to run the calculations in that moment? Had he determined, before lunging, that he could spare the amount of energy that the temple required, and that if he did it correctly they could therefore both survive? Had he considered his survival at all? Tarkin had a creeping suspicion that Vader had not done either of those things. Just lunged.

"We should not speak of it," Vader warned. "But I remember."

"What's the last you remember, then?"

"Leaving the temple through the door."

Which was when they'd both gotten cold again. Perhaps it was cold, more than touch, that did the most dangerous things to Vader's mind. This wasn't the time to have a proper talk about Vader's triggers, though, not in front of all the med techs.

"Well," said Tarkin, "it was simple enough after that. You sat down under an overhang and I received a message on my transmitter from the _Executor_. I informed them of our situation and they sent a shuttle down, and I sat to wait with you. We didn't have any proper gear, so I wrapped your cape around me to keep out the cold. Then soon enough the shuttle arrived and whisked us off to our respective medical treatments, and that was that."

Vader didn't say anything more, but he tugged Tarkin's hand a little closer to himself.

_I will not allow anything to harm you,_ Vader had vowed, and Tarkin was acutely aware of why he could not make the same vow himself.

The Dark Side euphoria of that ritual was fully gone from him now, but he remembered it clearly. The sense that anything was possible. He was rather horrified with himself in retrospect. The betrayal had spilled from him so easily. So _glibly._ If a magical influence had made him do something completely unlike himself, gibber like an animal or dance and sing, that might have been less disturbing. But Tarkin's offer of treason had made so much sense, by a logic very nearly the same as his usual. Only a hair's breadth of distance separated him from it now. Only a tiny bit of courage.

It was a courage he had never had before, and would never have again.

He stroked the edge of Vader's gloved hand with a thumb, feeling strangely unworthy. Tarkin could not fix Darth Vader; perhaps no one could. But Tarkin could love him, imperfectly. That would have to be enough.

*

Fortress Vader stood on its clifftop with its lava waterfall, as darkly ostentatious as Tarkin remembered. That dark portcullis Vader used as a front door already gaped open, and he could see all three of Vader's house servants waiting anxiously inside, along with two Royal Guards, M4-R3K, and an assortment of other droids.

Vader seemed not to know what to make of this attention. "There is no need for ceremony," he grumbled, as the medtechs pushed him along the catwalk, which spanned precariously over the lava river from the shuttle's landing place to the fortress itself. Tarkin, as ever, followed closely behind.

"Of course there is, Lord Vader," scolded M4-R3K, the squat customized 2-1B unit who served as Vader's personal medic, trotting up to him. Tarkin watched in amusement. "We _worry_ about you."

"Do you worry about your own bodily destruction?" Vader growled, but he let himself and the float pallet be handed over.

"Em-four," said Tarkin, nodding to her in greeting, "when you're finished seeing to Lord Vader's needs, I hoped I could have a word."

M4 looked up, seeming to register Tarkin's presence for the first time. "Oh, hi, Governor Tarkin. Don't you worry about anything like that. We are having _a lot_ of words." She turned from him, pulling Vader's float pallet into the lift with her. "_Really,_ Lord Vader? You _must_ have known it was not a good idea to bring your friend home at a time like this. Just look at your indicator panel,_ look _at it, this is _not _going to be the kind of week where you can-"

The lift closed, muffling whatever her other words were, and whatever was Vader's response.

Vaneé, a wizened soft-spoken man who was the most senior of Vader's house servants, gave Tarkin a short, careful bow. "We did not expect your arrival, Grand Moff. What do you wish of us?

There was a well-hidden unease behind Vaneé's professionalism. Important people on Coruscant made a point of being prepared for any unexpected guests; but Fortress Vader was different. Tarkin suspected they'd never _had_ an unexpected houseguest before.

"I hoped the _Executor_ would send word ahead of my arrival," Tarkin said. "I'll have to speak to someone about that. For tonight, I'm sure whatever bedding and food you can scrounge will be acceptable. So long as my datapad functions, I won't need to be lavishly entertained. Speaking of which, do you have the time?"

"Seventeen forty," said Vaneé, inclining his head again. "In twenty minutes, we can have a meal ready for you, and your guest room will be ready by the meal's end. This hall and the sixth- and seventh-floor meeting rooms are ready for use immediately, if you would like."

Tarkin quickly reset his datapad's clock. It was early evening, then. That worked, because he felt tired, but not tired enough to go back to sleep yet.

"Splendid, yes," he said. "I'll head to the sixth floor immediately, see if I can get a start on my report." And he did.

*

"Do not judge Tarkin too harshly," said Vader, as M4 pushed his float pallet over the second-floor catwalk, through the pressurized doors, into his quarters. Vader liked his quarters. It was very relaxing to see them again, after all this mission's bullshit. His pain was down to something more like his usual levels, now that he had his meds again, but it would take time for everything to get fully back to normal. The exhaustion and weakness from the Force drain, in particular, would linger. "He knows this will not be the visit we planned. He knows I am too ill to give him pleasure. He simply..."

Vader trailed off, uncertain how to describe the emotion he had felt in Tarkin's mind. _He wanted to ensure I was all right_ might be it, that was close enough to the phrasing Tarkin had used, but it was not that, at its core. Tarkin knew already that Vader had competent medical care. What had driven him to come here was some more indefinable, caring, nervous, guilty, hovering feeling. Vader didn't know what to call it. He didn't think he'd felt a feeling like that from anyone in a long time.

He was grateful for it, though. Tarkin might yet slip out of his hands, but not today. Not soon. Not if Tarkin himself had anything to say about it. Vader was almost beginning to believe that, deep down.

"He wanted to stay and make sure his friend was okay, is that what you're saying, Lord Vader?"

Vader wondered why it sounded right in M4 and Tarkin's voices but not his own.

"Tarkin and I have discussed the issues you brought up," he said. "With regards to our planned activities and my health. You will find him more receptive to your concerns than you believed. As soon as I informed him you had reservations, he no longer wished to proceed. I was more difficult to convince." He looked down. M4 had been programmed to speak freely with him. It was often annoying. Yet sometimes it soothed him being spoken to that way, as if people still existed who didn't have a cause to be afraid of him. Sometimes he felt oddly bold, free to speak back in the same manner with her, when it would otherwise have hurt his pride too much. "But he was correct. You were correct."

"Oh, _really_," M4 said. "All right, I'm going to have to hear this one. Tell me everything. First things first, though, we've got to get you onto that table and look at the physical damage. Come on up here, Lord Vader."

She patted the padded table, and he maneuvered himself there without much difficulty. Vader wasn't incapable of supporting his weight; he just couldn't walk very far without wobbling yet, and he hadn't wanted to wobble in front of his honor guard. He lay down on his back, surrendering to the familiar routine.

"So, I got the report from the _Executor_'s medical team," M4 said. "Nice and thorough. Sounds like they did a good job getting you stabilized. But there's types of work we can only do in here. So I'm afraid this is going to be a really long session. I'm gonna need to check about seventeen dozen things to make sure they're progressing at the right rate following the initial treatment, and then I'm gonna have to do a full inspection of all of your internal devices for infection or blockage, because _phew,_ you remember how many of those there were last time this happened, and the _Executor_ team can't get to them all. I know you hate it, but it's better to catch any problems now than later. Then when all that's treated, you can go in your tank and stay in there as long as you want. Okay?"

"As you wish," Vader said vaguely. M4 had to do things that hurt him sometimes. But at least she never taunted him with them, asking if he could really take it, if he was strong enough, if he was sure. M4 needed nothing more than rote assent.

"Thanks, Lord Vader. You know, there's one upside to needing really long procedures," M4 said, as cheerful as before. She was already working briskly at the top of his helmet, the clasp of his cape, all the preliminaries of his armor. "It means you have _lots_ of time to tell me _all_ about what went wrong. I promise I'll only say 'I told you so,' like, once, okay?"

Vader attempted to glower through his mask. "I need not tell you anything."

"You do if you want medical advice about it, Lord Vader."

Vader vaguely clenched his hand. _I wanted to speak to Em-four as well,_ Tarkin had said, and Vader could guess why. And while he didn't want to tell this whole story just now, he preferred that to letting M4 hear about it from Tarkin first.

"We were in the escape pod together," he said, "for a protracted time."

"Yep," said M4, removing another piece of armor. "With you so far."

"I had incurred damage to my suit in the process of leaving the _Overseer._"

"Yep, that was in the report."

"A part of the chest armor was cracked open, as you see, and the fabric below it was torn."

"Uh huh."

"I convinced Tarkin to put his hand through the breach in my armor and to touch my skin."

M4 lifted up the aforementioned broken chestpiece, examined it critically, then thunked it down heavily on the float pallet for later salvage, repair, or disposal. "And how'd that work out for you, Lord Vader?"

"It was not Tarkin's fault," Vader insisted. "He exercised all the caution he could. I told him that, apart from the damage that is already inevitable in an armor breach, there was no risk."

"Yep. Got it. I bet he believed you. You're big, strong, and convincing, Lord Vader."

"I believed it, too," said Vader, sulkier than ever.

M4 gave an electronic sigh as she pulled at another part of his armor. "Sorry, Lord Vader. I've been a little stressed out lately. I didn't mean to get distracted from the main point. So, he touched you, and then what happened?"

Vader's gloved hand clenched against the padded table beneath him. "I flashed back. To a medical procedure. Not one of yours. An older one."

"Oh," said M4 flatly, after a split-second's pause. "One of _those._"

"I destroyed the escape pod."

There was nothing joking or scolding in her tone anymore. "Yeah, I bet you did."

"I did not recognize him," said Vader. This hurt, but he needed to finish it. It was important that she actually understand. "I saw only the temple, which was my purpose there. And - an obstacle between me and my purpose."

M4 had gone still. "Did you hurt him?"

"Not directly. But we were on an ice moon, without winter survival gear, and I destroyed his only shelter."

She started to move again, carefully, undoing the belt that held his lightsaber at his waist. "Okay."

"He followed me, and he entered the temple to keep warm. It was sacrilegious, but he had no choice. And then the temple shut him up, trapped him there with me and made him undergo its trials. It would have killed him. He passed every test, without even the Force to help him, and it would have killed him anyway, deliberately. Do you understand? That is what I led him to. He is grateful to me for saving him, but I only saved him from my own mistake. And that, only partway. He refuses to believe I am a danger to him, but-"

This was more than what he'd meant to say, and he was beginning to have difficulty even getting out the words' sounds. His face was twitching again. Maybe M4 could get him an anti-convulsant.

"Well," M4 said lightly, "not listening to me was your fault, Lord Vader. That was a mistake. And maybe not knowing your own triggers was a little bit your fault. I don't think you're responsible for what some thousands-of-years-old temple does, though. I mean, _you_ didn't build that thing."

"The Sith built that thing. And I am responsible for carrying on the legacy of the Sith."

"If you say so, Lord Vader," said M4, exuding boredom. She was on to some of the more delicate parts of the suit now, the fabrics and inner latches. Digging her way to parts of his body that Tarkin had never seen. It was routine, and he was not shy around her, but tonight it made his throat clench up with an obscure frustration. Tarkin might never get to these parts of him, ordinary parts like the neck and upper arms. "You know I don't get along with Governor Tarkin."

"I am aware," he said.

"It's nothing personal, he just rubs me the wrong way. And I'm reserving a lot of judgment until after he and I have had our talk, because that could go a lot of ways. Do you want me to say what I think right now, though?"

"I doubt I could stop you."

"I think all your friends are crazy, Lord Vader. It's a little crazy to want to be tortured for fun in the first place, you know? Let alone by a Sith Lord. But there are lots of worse ways to be ridiculous, and they aren't harming anything. I kind of like it when they come around, because it makes you-" She pulled the fabric fully away from his torso, exposing the large gauze bandage the med techs had placed over his side, and became immediately distracted. "Oh, wow, they weren't kidding when they told me how big that frostbitten place was, were they, Lord Vader?"

"Unfortunately not."

"This is after you had first aid and a night to rest, and I'm still seeing discoloration even outside the bandage. And you had a laceration under this, too, right?"

"It was a shallow cut. I rinsed and bandaged it before I was exposed to the cold."

"Yeah, that won't help as much as you think it will. I mean, it's better than if you hadn't." She made a dispirited gesture and moved on, pulling away more fabric lower down. "I'm gonna have take a real good look at the area as soon as your prosthetics are off. I mean, we sort of knew that, I'm just reiterating. You might get a local anesthetic, depending how the frostbite's clearing up. Sorry, Lord Vader, I got sidetracked. What was I saying before?"

"You were remotely diagnosing all my play partners with mental illnesses."

"Oh, that, yeah." M4 finished baring his legs and started to work at the complicated mechanisms securing his above-the-knee prosthetics to the flesh. "Let me know if any of this pinches, okay? It shouldn't feel any worse than normal, but at a time like this you never know."

"As you wish," Vader muttered.

"Anyway," said M4, "I get why you feel guilty, Lord Vader. I'm not gonna say there's no risk. But, you know, I look at this from a harm reduction perspective. You're gonna have your friends; you need them. And you need someone who cares about you enough that he'll follow you home and make sure you're okay, even after that bit with the pod and the temple. Crazy or not, right?" She detached his prosthetic leg fully, lifting it away from him as she talked. It pinched, but not at levels out of the ordinary. He kept silent. "I'm glad that you found one like that. Even if I don't actually like him, or how you've been going about things. I'm glad."

*

Tarkin's dinner was delivered to him on schedule: a hearty plate of what appeared to be fish (_could not_ be fish; where could there possibly be fish on Mustafar? Was it some delicate lava-dwelling reptile, perhaps?) in a simple sauce, accompanied by a small pile of steamed vegetables. It was not as sumptuous or elaborate as what they'd served him when they had proper notice, and the vegetables gave the impression of having been frozen a long time. He suspected it was the sort of food the servants prepared for themselves, on days when their duties were light and there was no one home. But it was homemade and tasted good, and there was wine with it, and he was honestly satisfied.

Afterwards, he sat in one of the comfortable chairs of Fortress Vader's meeting room and looked at his datapad, wirelessly hooking it into the holo-table's display so he could view his work at a larger resolution. This room was just across from the dining hall. Everything was clean and in working order, and behind him, a large window looked out on Mustafar's endless burning plains.

On Tarkin's first visit to Mustafar, the sight of that landscape had disturbed him. The whole fortress had disturbed him, really, a visual protocol that seemed designed not only to intimidate guests, but to remind Vader he was only a monster.

Now that he'd been in an actual Sith temple, Tarkin saw more in Fortress Vader's design. There were a set of shared aesthetic principles between the two, though altered by the thousands of years of slow cultural change that separated them. It was in the red darkness of the place, the angles, the scale. Tarkin couldn't analyze it fully, of course; he wasn't an expert in architecture or other arts. He wondered what Grand Admiral Thrawn would have made of it.

He suspected that the effect was not wholly oppressive, though, or at least not in the way he'd thought at first. The fortress gave a visual impression of pain, and power, even to a dehumanizing degree; but to the Sith, pain _was_ power. Tarkin could not longer understand that mental alchemy intuitively or directly; the alteration to his mind that allowed it was gone now. But he remembered what it had felt like. Perhaps from Vader's perspective, the fortress didn't merely confine him, but fed him. Perhaps by inviting in the lava from as many disquieting angles as possible, Vader had absorbed its primal strength for himself.

Tarkin paged through the messages on his datapad. They had increased in number since he last looked, and it still took a bit of effort to focus on them individually, but they weren't blurring together as heavily as they had before. It looked like his aides were handling them competently, so instead of trying to conquer his inbox right away, he instead began to jot down his notes toward a full report on the _Overseer_'s mission.

It was at that moment, with uncomfortably characteristic timing, that the holo-table's display dissolved away from him. It chimed urgently, informing him of an incoming message from the Imperial Palace. There was nothing to do, with a message like that - not even the pretense of another option - but to accept.

Tarkin left his chair, genuflecting correctly on the floor, as a hologram of the Emperor swam into place before him. "My lord."

"Grand Moff Tarkin," said Palpatine. "How surprising. I had expected to see you returning to Coruscant."

"There was a change of plans," Tarkin said blithely. "A warranted one, given some of the mishaps that occurred during the mission; I'm told Fortress Vader is one of the best places to convalesce from anything Force-related. It will be a working holiday; in fact, I was just sitting down to begin my full report to you."

As he finished that last sentence, he dared to look up, straight into the Emperor's holographic eyes.

Palpatine looked no different from normal. But it was the first time Tarkin had looked at him since that moment on that dais, and it sent a chill to his core. Looking at him made it _real_. This was his Emperor, the man to whom he'd sworn undying loyalty, and whom he'd offered to help overthrow, some not-too-large number of hours ago, and-

And he could read minds.

Tarkin was very practiced at controlling his facial expression and posture. He knew he hadn't shown a shred of his sudden fear. He knew, despite this, that the Emperor would not be fooled.

He could not know what had happened. He couldn't be _that_ perceptive. But he could sense something amiss, surely.

"A report to which I look forward with great interest," said Palpatine. "It is not often, you know, that a secular individual has the opportunity to witness private matters of the Sith. And there are certain dangers in doing so. The Dark Side has a way of causing previous convictions to fall into doubt. Loyalties to waver."

Tarkin set his jaw. Was it worth trying to hide anything from a man like the Emperor? What would he do if he saw the whole story, displayed for him as plainly as an entertainment vid? He might dispose of Tarkin immediately. But perhaps not. Surely Tarkin wasn't the only man who'd ever been tempted to betray Palpatine. A subordinate who harbored traitorous thoughts under pressure, and who chose not to act on them, might be preferable to one who'd never thought of it. The former was, at least, a known quantity.

"Any man can be made to waver in his thoughts," Tarkin calmly replied. "What matters more, I would think, are deeds. Results."

Palpatine smiled slightly, a lazy animal toying with its prey. "Then we shall hope that you've produced results which please me."

Tarkin held his gaze, unmoved. "As always, my lord."

Palpatine relaxed. The smile with which he addressed Tarkin next was nearly a normal human one. "I think I shall need to lower the frequency of missions to which you and Lord Vader are both assigned. You do seem to create more difficulty together than anticipated. I expect that won't trouble you, since you've discovered you can pay visits to him without my mandate. It is new for all of us, isn't it, mixing work with matters of the heart this way." His mouth flickered with some brief amusement. "New for myself and for Vader, at least. How are you finding it?"

Tarkin thought back to the beginning of the mission. Not the nonsense inside the temple, but those things that had bothered him when he first saw Vader. Compared to what else he'd been through, some of those things seemed almost small enough to safely address.

"I have no real complaints," he said, level and easy, continuing to match Palpatine's gaze. "Vader and I have always worked well together. I find his company intriguing and his abilities... unique. I've appreciated your largesse in lending him out, as it were." He relaxed himself ever so slightly. "He is a strange individual when it comes to emotions, though, isn't he? I find I don't always have the knack of knowing how we can best communicate."

Palpatine's smile sharpened. "That is his failing, not yours. He has always been a poor communicator. But don't be so quick to desire the knowledge of Lord Vader's mind. It can be a fearful place."

Tarkin had no doubt that it was; and that Palpatine's mind might be the only worse one. He was counting on that now. The Emperor couldn't help but manipulate; he wouldn't resist the opportunity to triangulate Vader's lover against him.

"You'd know that better than me, I'll grant. How do you find it on missions? He seems the type to go off-script fairly frequently."

Palpatine lazily smiled. "We do make it work, for the most part. Are you tiring of your strange lover, Tarkin? Now that you've drawn close enough to see his many imperfections?"

"Oh, not at all." Takin leaned in. "But if this romantic situation is new to you, then you may not be familiar with the standards that are traditionally expected. So let me enlighten you. You can give orders to Vader, regarding his_ own_ behavior, all you like. But I will not accept you relaying orders to _me,_ secondhand, through someone you yourself describe as a poor communicator. If there are boundaries that you wish me to observe, I expect you to say so to _me. _I'll refrain from calling Lord Vader _mine,_ because we hadn't had this talk yet when you ordered that. But if you have further such orders in the future, either you'll say so clearly to my face, or I'll consider myself entitled to ignore them."

Palpatine was silent a moment, holding Tarkin's gaze. Then he huffed out a short, derisive laugh. "You are bold as ever, Wilhuff. But you remain stubbornly fixed on the delusion that everything is about you." He waved his hand. "I'll communicate in that manner in the future, if the alternative troubles you. It is no great burden to me."

Tarkin bowed his head in acknowledgement. "Was there anything else, my lord?"

"Not at all. I have learned what I called here to learn. I will simply require your report as soon as possible, and your return to Coruscant within the week." The Emperor smiled again, soft and unpleasant. "We will have to hope that none of your deeds have _unintended_ results."

The hologram flicked off. Tarkin watched the air where it had been warily, for a moment, then let out his breath. As always happened with unexpected Imperial calls, he'd had to draw up verbal battle plans on the fly. And he was left at the end of it, as usual, still unsure which of them had won.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tarkin writes a somewhat sanitized report; tests are done; advice is given; requests are filed for the purposes of blowing things up; smile-related statistical analysis is performed; and a lot of people try really hard to be the next Grand Moff.

The guest room to which Vaneé eventually led Tarkin was furnished in the same manner as last time: grand, ominous, everything placed in such a manner to make a visitor feel small in comparison, with a spectacular view of the lava river rushing below. Tarkin set the window to opaque mode and ignored it all in favor of another good shower and sleep.

In the morning, he had a vague sense of something having changed, but it took a moment blearily looking around before he saw it. The house servants had delivered him, unbidden, two new changes of clothes. They were his size, cut in a simple but tasteful civilian style which vaguely resembled what he'd worn here on his first visit. Soft black trousers and short-sleeved tunics, lightly embroidered at the edges in an abstract pattern which Tarkin suspected was local. He chose the nearest one, a dark blue with brown trim, and put it on; it felt more appropriate for these environs than the spare uniform he'd brought.

There was also breakfast, delivered to the dining hall with a lavishness that made him suspect the servants had been up all night sourcing last-minute provisions to make up for last night's mediocrity. There were chocolate pancakes, five types of breakfast sausage, very fluffy scrambled eggs, and more fruit than he could justify through any dietary logic. There was caf, most importantly, of the finest and richest variety, and it much improved his mood. Even that virus he was fighting off hadn't affected him much today, apart from the occasional sneeze and a bit of a heavy feeling in his sinuses, but he took the antihistamines anyway to be safe.

Tarkin knew he wouldn't see Vader immediately. Vader would want to sleep late in that bacta tank, and when he did awaken, he might have other medical business to attend to. Tarkin still wanted to speak to M4-R3k, but he suspected she'd had a long night, too, and he was prepared to wait. He would, as promised, content himself with work.

After breakfast, back in the meeting room, he wrote his report in as much detail as he felt he safely could. He faithfully recounted the _Overseer_'s destruction, the drop to Hethea 1 in the escape pod, the injuries and difficulties that had been inflicted on Vader and the way he'd flown the pod using only the Force. And then the wait in the pod, overnight, before he and Vader discovered the Sith temple. He chose to be somewhat elliptical about why the _Overseer_'s crew had been delayed in reaching him, and as to how exactly the pod had been destroyed. _Due perhaps to the sudden cessation of his medicine and the psychological pressures of confinement, or perhaps to some Force influence from the nearby temple, Lord Vader entered an agitated state and could not be dissuaded from making his way to the temple immediately._

He described most of the temple's mechanisms as accurately as he could. How it had separated him and Vader; how it had assigned them the roles of ersatz master and apprentice; how it had subjected them to various tests. He described the precarious walkway over the crevasse, his conversation with the slabs in the mirror room, the discovery of the dead girl's body, the red mirror which required him to keep his hand in place through a painful, interminable count. He omitted his subsequent vision, though. He wrote down that, when the count reached zero, the temple told him he had passed and allowed him to remove his hand. This was technically all true, and the rest was his own business.

The next room, with its torture devices, was a complex matter. Tarkin spent a minute considering how best to describe it. Palpatine didn't want to read about the sex acts he'd been induced to perform, surely, and Tarkin didn't want to write about them. _The temple informed Lord Vader, _he wrote, _that he was to induce in me an emotion of religious reverence for the Dark Side, which due to my personal disposition was difficult to achieve. A room was provided in which to attempt it, along with various physical and chemical tools. Due to Lord Vader's great skill with the Force, however, he did not require such tools and was able to create the required emotion through a mind probe. This process also tired him further._

_The tools available were not of types that I recognized, but given their general characteristics, I assume they were intended for the use of designated masters who lack Lord Vader's skill set, and who might instead try their hand at inducing emotion through physical torture and/or chemical influence._

The weapon's targeting system was relatively easy to describe. Tarkin went through the steps of how the user interface had worked, and how they'd targeted the pirates and adjusted the weapon's various settings. He wrote a short sentence about the need for the apprentice of the pair to climb onto a dais in order to fire, and that was where he paused longest of all.

There were two secrets to keep here. One was his near-betrayal of Palpatine, but that was easy to elide; he simply had to pretend that no time elapsed between ascending the dais and firing. The other was Vader's self-sacrifice, which left a much more puzzling hole in the account.

_We should not speak of it,_ Vader had warned. Yet, if Palpatine were to find out the truth through other means - by interrogating Vader, for instance - it would not do for Tarkin to be caught in a lie. And if he simply omitted the information, none of the subsequent medical reports would make sense. The best compromise, probably, was a version of the truth which de-emphasized the sacrificial element as much as it could.

_It became apparent to Vader at the last moment,_ Tarkin typed out carefully, _that the temple was built to power itself by draining the user's life force. Through some use of the Force, he was able to prevent this aspect of its operation from fully taking hold, but not without some damage to us both. My later medical examination turned up neurological oddities that could not be traced to a physical cause, which I suspect is an aftereffect of this aspect of the weapon's use, and which I'm told will resolve on its own. As a non-Force-sensitive myself, of course, there is much that I will need to take on faith._

_After firing, the temple's outer doors opened, and Lord Vader and I were able to exit the building and await rescue. The remainder of the mission is well recorded; we were retrieved by the _Executor,_ which was already in orbit searching for survivors from the _Overseer, _and received medical treatment before returning to our normal lives._

_In summary, after having experienced the capabilities of this Sith temple firsthand, I cannot recommend its further exploration or use. The temple's great destructive power cannot be used without the sacrifice of at least one of its users. The fact that Lord Vader was able to subvert this aspect does not contradict my point; even a wielder as skilled in the Force as himself could only imperfectly hold it at bay. One could imagine taking sacrificial wielders from the ranks of prisoners or involuntary laborers, or perhaps even the more-expendable sort of officer, but in practice this approach would not suffice, due to the temple's insistence on taking only skilled and worthy wielders who are genuinely valued by the master who enters with them, and its ruthless murder of any pairs who make the attempt and fail._

Tarkin smiled slightly at that last part. Palpatine could not use this weapon even if he tried, because Palpatine had never truly valued anyone but himself. Not that this would be much comfort, of course, to whomever he unwillingly dragged in with him.

_Given the necessity of skill with the Force for certain aspects of the weapon's operation, _he continued, _the pool of such potential wielders is impracticably small, rendering it altogether too costly and unreliable for any straightforward military use. As for its value in psyops as a deterrent, that has already been accomplished by Lord Vader and myself, and further efforts would produce rapidly diminishing returns._

_The temple's continued existence, however, does prove a significant threat to the Empire should it fall into enemy hands. It would be much more useful to a fanatical guerrilla force such as the Rebel Alliance than to us. Such organizations are used to dramatic, last-ditch, self-sacrificial efforts against high-value targets and are well supplied with personnel willing to give their own life or the life of a loved one for these aims. Given the temple's seemingly unlimited range and its ability to bypass most conventional defenses, and given the persistent rumors of Force-sensitive operatives existing among the Rebels, this danger is too great to ignore._

_As such, attached with this report is an expedited formal request for the destruction of the temple's site by any necessary means. Bombardment with concussion missiles from an orbiting Super Star Destroyer, or a convoy of TIE/sa bombers, would be the obvious choice. In the event the temple proves magically resilient to such conventional attacks, I would then further informally request that Hethea 1 be added to the list of potential test sites for Project Stardust._

_I eagerly await my Emperor's judgment on this matter._

He had finished the draft, and was halfway through proofreading it, when the door swished open and M4-R3K entered. She carried one of those diagnostic scanners in one metal hand, and in the other, a bag which he suspected was full of other small devices that she might require.

"Em-four," he said, pushing back his chair and nodding to her in greeting. He swiped his hand over a button on the holo-display, and it winked out. "I've been expecting you."

"Hi, Governor Tarkin. Yeah, no rest for the weary. We're not gonna have that big talk you wanted right away, okay? We should probably wait until you've touched base with Lord Vader for that. But I do have to check how your symptoms are doing now that you've had some sleep. This'll just take a second, probably."

He quietly submitted to a pass across his head and body with the scanner. At least he didn't have to take off his clothes this time. He also held out his hands so she could take the bandages off his fingers, which turned out to be much improved.

"Well," she said, "looks like you're all better, Governor Tarkin. You've still got a mild rhinovirus but it'll run its course and it looks like the antihistamines are controlling your symptoms. The frostbite's all gone and you're cleared to wear boots again. That neurological Force thing's not quite gone yet but it's resolving ahead of schedule. I'll check again tomorrow, but you should be fine. Okay?"

"That's excellent. Thank you, Em-four." He looked over in the direction of the lift, briefly distracted by the thought of rushing to his room and exchanging these ridiculous slippers for proper boots. First things first, though. "How is Lord Vader?"

"Eh, well, he's as good as can be expected. He's still asleep right now. Didn't even wake up to ask for his painkillers, poor thing. I can keep him titrated while he's still in the tank, of course. But he's on the road to recovery, if you can ever really talk about someone like Lord Vader recovering. He'll eventually be fine."

Tarkin picked up a tissue and sneezed into it; he'd quietly ensured that the servants had enough of a supply of these, too. "We may as well have that talk about him now, since there's time."

"I'd really rather not, Governor Tarkin, if that's okay with you. Like, as far as I can tell, you two have a lot to sort out yourselves before you even need me for anything."

He tossed his tissue into the waste bin and attempted to look dignified again. "I'm afraid I see the matter quite differently. I've tried and failed before to make Vader see reason about his health, and I think I need advice from someone more experienced with those matters before I can productively speak with him about it again. Sit down, won't you?"

He gestured to the chair across from him, and M4 eyed it dubiously before hopping on. "Okay, Governor Tarkin. Shoot."

Tarkin took a breath. "Has he - told you what's been going on? And what happened in the escape pod, in particular?"

"Yeah, he told me. I spend a lot of time with Lord Vader, you know. He tells me things."

He spread his hands in a gesture of mild submission. "Then you see the problem. Vader told me, in the temple, that he didn't believe I could ever touch him again. He wasn't sure if the relationship could continue at all. I talked him down; I said we should take some time to think about it first, and then discuss it at greater length, in a safer spot. But I'm truly at my wit's end. I don't know if I can _ever_ touch him without some disaster like this happening, and I don't know how the relationship will recover at this point if I can't. So I'm here to ask for your advice, I suppose, the way I should have done in the first place. I just want-"

He broke off. _I just want Vader to be happy,_ was how he'd planned to end that speech, but it rang hollow. Was it possible for a man like Vader to ever be happy?

M4 gave an electronic sigh. "Yeah, I know what you want, Governor Tarkin. You want to have sex with your boyfriend. It's not like I never heard that one before."

Tarkin drew back, mildly nonplussed. "We already have relations, of course, but-"

"Yeah, but the regular way. And you want a boyfriend who isn't constantly in the middle of some medical or psychological crisis, right?"

This was not at all how Tarkin had pictured the conversation going, and he didn't like where it seemed to be headed. "I'd at least like to avoid _causing_ the crises."

"Uh huh. And you also want your boyfriend to be Darth Vader. I'm just trying to make sure you've thought this all through, Governor Tarkin."

Tarkin narrowed his eyes. "I'm aware a relationship with Vader carries some inherent risks, yes. I believe we were handling them fairly well up to this point. But-"

"_Fairly well?_" M4 interrupted. She smacked both of her two-fingered metal hands down on the holo-table for emphasis. "You don't understand anything, do you? You don't even know what Lord Vader's health problems _are._ Did he tell you that his senses are impaired without the mask? Or did he just let you take it off of him and pretend he could still see and hear you?"

"I-" Tarkin started. He suddenly understood why Vader's eyes had looked unfocused in the meditation chamber. Oh dear. "He did not say that, no."

"Did he tell you he _can't_ have sex? He's impotent and catheterized and you can't penetrate him anywhere. That's before we even get into the issue of him encountering other people's body fluids, enduring sustained friction against damaged skin, or a million other little sex issues that you never asked about."

Tarkin frowned. He'd suspected at least some of that was the case, but - there were ways, surely. Vader had already proven to him how many ways there were. M4 _must_ know; she must be presenting the information this way for some other reason. Before he could open his mouth to clarify, she barrelled on.

"D id he tell you he's mildly immunosuppressed? We had to make adjustments so his body wouldn't reject all the ridiculousness we've had to install, plus he's just gotten incredibly lazy at making antibodies on account of how he never breathes anything but filtered air. Did you know that? Of course you didn't! He didn't tell you and you didn't think about it! And you've just been putting your germy little mouth all over him while you have a  _virus!_ Do you know how hard it is to treat Lord Vader when he gets a respiratory infection? It's - _arrrgh!_"

At her overt display of anger, Tarkin's usual instincts took hold. He would not be cowed by shouting, even fairly well-justified shouting, even from a droid he was meant to be listening to.

"You've been holding in that vent for some time, I suppose," he said coolly. "Feel better?"

"Not really. Thanks for asking."

"Then let's return to the main point, which is that I'm asking you for advice. I don't know the right way to move forward with Vader, given the risks. As you say, I don't even have the information required to make that choice. But if anyone knows that, it's surely you."

M4's hands thunked down on the holo-table again. He wondered if she'd grown to share Vader's penchant for breaking things. Surely not; he couldn't picture Vader tolerating that trait in his servants. "You're not _listening._"

Tarkin worked his jaw, and then he pushed his chair back from the table. If this wasn't getting anywhere, then - well, it wasn't. "Let me see if I have this straight, then. You're aware of the problem; you're aware that I came here in part to put aside our previous differences and ask for your help. You're telling me that there's nothing I can do to fix this after all, and no help to be had. Do I have that correct?"

M4 slumped, her anger receding into mere surliness. "I mean, I didn't say there's _no_ help."

Tarkin raised an eyebrow. Vader was a poor communicator, and for all M4's surface friendliness, she'd had few other people besides Vader to practice speaking with. When there was some deep emotional matter to get across, when she was flustered and out of her depth, perhaps she reverted to the same strange, sulking, indirect methods that Vader did.

"Enlighten me," he said.

She looked back up at him. "Pop quiz, first, Governor Tarkin. What if I did say there was nothing you could do to fix this? What would you do then?"

"I suppose the first thing I'd do is ask for clarification," said Tarkin, who had already considered this. "I'd ask, in your professional opinion, if we simply need to stop taking parts of the suit off, since Vader can't handle that. Or - again, in your professional opinion - since Vader is so impulsive and will keep asking for it, if the whole relationship is now somehow damaged past safety."

"Huh," said M4. "Okay. And what would you do if it was the first one?"

"I would then ask your advice about how to break the news to Vader, how to help him comply. You're aware he can be difficult to manage. But I would follow orders."

"Uh huh. And if it was the second one?"

"I would be deeply unhappy with that, but I would, again, comply with medical advice." He was capable of that, just as he'd been capable of placing Natasi outside his own reach, once it became clear that his presence wouldn't help her anymore. He didn't _like_ it, but he was capable.

The more pressing question, if he and Vader couldn't see each other anymore, would be Vader's response. He'd reacted so violently, the first day of the mission, to a much milder and more temporary rejection. But Tarkin would handle that if he had to.

"Okay," said M4. "Question three. What if I said there was a way to safely have what you want, but it would take a long time?"

Tarkin was uncomfortably reminded of the temple's tests, the deadly traps in questions as simple as _Does he value you?_ He thought he'd given the best possible answer to the first two questions, but the droid looked singularly unimpressed. Well, maybe she just didn't like him. In any case, nothing would be gained by dissembling.

"I am capable of waiting," he said. "I much prefer that to the other two options."

"What if there was a way, but it was dangerous? Not as dangerous as what you did before, but still some physical risk until we'd sorted out some stuff, like where exactly all Lord Vader's triggers are."

"It would depend on the specifics of the risk, but from the sound of it, yes, I'd do that."

"Wow. Good job, Governor Tarkin." She sat up a little straighter, something seeming to glint with gleeful malice in her electronic eyes. "You failed every question."

"I beg your pardon." He rather thought he'd given the best answers possible; he'd shown flexibility, obedience, willingness to be practical and cooperate. Hadn't he?

M4 shook her head in something that looked very much like mirth. "See, the thing _is_, Governor Tarkin, there are definitely things I can do to help in situations like these. I can make treatment plans, I can design assistive devices, I can make comprehensive lists of medical risks to address, I can help people work on their boundaries. I can even kinda do exposure therapy. I'm a highly skilled medical droid, I can do lots of things. But you failed that little quiz, because you thought I was going to do them for _you._"

Tarkin drew back, dismayed. "It is not only for me. I'm well aware Lord Vader is the one who needs treatment. But I take actions that affect him, surely."

"Uh huh." She raised a hand and wiggled her fingers back and forth, as if counting on them. "You sure do take actions. You tried to make him _see reason_ about his health, but you don't understand what his health is in the first place. You call him _difficult to manage,_ like you're even his manager. You told him the two of you would have a discussion about what to decide, and then you come here and ask me to help you decide in advance without him. I gave you two scenarios that give you what you want but at a cost, something that both you and Lord Vader would think was unpleasant, and you agreed you'd do both of them right away. You didn't even mention checking what he thought first. I don't like you as a person, Governor Tarkin, but I like that you've made Lord Vader happy. Don't screw that up this way. Don't pretend like you can make his choices for him."

Tarkin drew back, unnerved. "I don't want to take his autonomy. But you must see my dilemma. Making the wrong choice with Lord Vader is dangerous. It leads to - well, to what you just saw happen on this mission."

M4 leaned in, lowering her voice. "Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Lord Vader's a dangerous person, isn't he? And that danger draws you in, right, it's exciting, until you realize half of it's because he's traumatized and mentally ill. Right?  He makes bad choices, doesn't he? Bad choices for both of you, dangerous choices. Doesn't that make you want to take the reins?  Doesn't it make you want to  _control_ him?"

He took a breath, looking back at her. This line of questioning wasn't even a trap; the points were bare now, fully visible. He had underestimated this droid severely. She wasn't only some clever medical device; she was Lord Vader's greatest confidante. She spent more time speaking with him than Tarkin or even the Emperor. She knew exactly how he had been hurt, and how the hurt perpetuated itself.

"At times," he said softly. The only way through this, he supposed, was with honesty. "I suppose I haven't always reined that in as I should."

"You can always walk away," said M4. "You can always have your boundaries. You can always tell him no. But if anything ever fixes Lord Vader's personal problems, it'll be Lord Vader, and it'll be a long time from now. It's literally impossible for you to do it yourself. If you don't want to be with someone who makes bad choices, don't be with him."

Tarkin worked his jaw. Something rang true to him about this criticism; it had locked on to his most hidden misgivings. Yet certain nuances seemed to be missing. "I couldn't walk away in the escape pod."

"Eh. No." She shrugged; the anger was gone from her voice now. "I'm not blaming you for that one, I guess."

"And I can't set my own boundaries if I don't have the information about what's dangerous and why."

"Yeah. That's also very true. Lord Vader told me last night that I could tell you any medical information I saw fit to share. Which, uh, is why I said all that stuff earlier about immunosuppression and whatnot. I didn't _completely_ forget doctor-patient confidentiality. Though apparently you did."

Tarkin gave her a flat look. "It didn't seem like that was all the information I needed."

"Nope," said M4 cheerily. "There's a lot more where that came from. But we're not going to talk about it now. Know what we're going to do instead? We're going to do what I suggested in the first place. I'm gonna leave you alone and let you have your little talk with Lord Vader when he's awake. And you should talk about, you know, relationship things." She waved a hand vaguely. "Emotion stuff. Stuff a meddroid can't decide for you. Figure out what your goals are and what you're both willing to risk for them, and how you're going to make those choices together. _Then_ you can come get me, and the three of us will work out a plan that doesn't kill anybody."

Tarkin frowned thoughtfully. "I failed your little test, then, but you're still going to help?"

"Sure I am. For Lord Vader's sake, not yours." She looked down, her voice softening. "Want to know something? He smiles when he talks about you. I don't think he realizes he's doing it. He used to go months without smiling, sometimes. You're not the only thing that's ever made him do it, but - you're the most, Governor Tarkin. The most smiles. It's statistically significant and everything."

Tarkin looked at M4 carefully, as a new possibility presented itself. A very odd one, and unlikely, but he'd heard of odder things with droids. "You love him, don't you?"

"Not the way you mean. Not any of the ways humans mean." She looked back up at him. "But you have to understand that Lord Vader is my Maker. He's literally my reason for being. Most droids are built to be flexible about their social bonds, because they could be sold to a different job with different humans anytime, right? Not me, though. I'm built to take care of just one guy. I don't think a human with free will can possibly understand what that's like."

"Well," said Tarkin. He did not, in fact, understand, but he could infer the response that was expected. "I'll try not to screw it up, then, shall I?"

"You'd better," she said.

*

With the report submitted and the ridiculous slippers exchanged for proper boots again, Tarkin's next task was to go through his messages. There was a great deal he'd need to respond to personally sooner or later. He scrolled through, taking his time. He'd only been missing in action for a day or so, and it hadn't gone public, but everyone in Imperial High Command who dealt with the Outer Rim in any way, as well as everyone who reported to him, had immediately panicked.

It was darkly amusing, seeing each person's reaction to the news that his position might be vacated. One day, if Tarkin did die in the line of duty, something very similar to this would unfold.

There was a procedure for it, of course. For the first few days, his aides redirecting and postpone as much as they could. Then there was a deputy who would temporarily act in his stead. From there, it would be a game of political maneuvering, as everyone waited for the Emperor to announce an official replacement, and as various moffs, admirals, and other officials tried to make sure it was them. That could be a short contest, if Tarkin was confirmed dead quickly, or a very long one involving many temporary appointments. It would be an entire mess, whose sole saving grace was that Tarkin would not be around to have to deal with it.

On this occasion, only the slenderest beginnings of that process had taken place. For the most part it was a question of various hopefuls writing what were ostensibly messages of concern and support, offering to assist his beleaguered staff at this difficult time in any way they might require. His staff were well-trained enough to recognize such offers for what they were, and had responded appropriately. Occasionally Tarkin added his own terse comments in a follow-up message.

There were procedural matters, too: meetings to be rescheduled and committees needing alternate arrangements in his absence, though most of them had already been put off for the short term when he'd been called away to serve on the _Overseer._ It was mainly a matter of soothing the nerves of certain high-strung Imperial officials, who feared their various policy concerns would be lost in the shuffle. Tarkin's aides had done a competent job at those, and he left them alone for now.

His attorney had forwarded him a message involving his ex-wife. Thalassa had found out about the situation, likely through one of her high-ranking cousins, and with impressive speed had filed a formal challenge for control of Tarkin's assets and estate should he fail to return. The challenge was invalid, given that Tarkin was demonstrably not dead, but he found himself smiling nostalgically at the attempt. Thalassa had always been an enterprising sort; he had liked it about her.

There was no word from his children, of course, although Thalassa's legal brief had named them both. He ran a search through the rest of his inbox just to make sure, but there was nothing.

It was well after lunch, and he was nearly finished with his first thorough pass, when the door swished open and Vaneé entered, bowing to him even more elaborately than usual.

"Grand Moff," said the wizened servant in a hesitant voice, "Lord Vader is awake. He requests your presence in his quarters."

Tarkin blinked. This was not a surprise, but he wanted to make sure he understood correctly, rather than make some extremely uncomfortable faux pas. Vader, after all, had never invited a visitor to his private quarters before. "On the second floor, you mean?"

"Yes, Grand Moff."

Well, then. "Thank you, Vaneé."

Tarkin straightened his collar and stood, taking a deep breath. He would, as promised, try not to screw this up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to SpookySpaghetties who pointed out some of the immunosuppression/germ-related issues first.
> 
> Next up: tank vader, as promised by the tags. :D :D :D


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tarkin asks the questions that have been bothering him for several chapters; traumas and risks are discussed; deals are made and sealed; and Vader lets his boyfriend see him naked for the very first time.

The second-floor lift doors opened onto another catwalk, as ominous as the ones around the fortress's entrance, and Tarkin strode across it at a measured pace. Vader's actual personal chambers were contained within an odd suspended structure, bulging with durasteel pipes and mechanisms, and the catwalk led straight towards it, to the double doors of an airlock. Tarkin entered these, too, drawing himself up.

The first thing to strike him, as the inner doors opened, was the smell. The whole room stank of bacta, which was not unexpected. Tarkin had always disliked that scent, the smell of waiting anxiously in the wings to find out if a subordinate or loved one was going to make it; the smell of slowly recovering from some drastic injury oneself.  But, of course, that wasn't what the smell meant to Vader. To Vader, bacta meant everyday rest and an easing of his usual pain. Through the process of association, he'd probably grown to enjoy it. Tarkin tried to think of it that way, and his discomfort eased.

The room itself was surprisingly plain. It was dim and painted mostly black, more reminiscent of one of Palpatine's smaller chambers in the Imperial Palace than the aggressive reddish grandeur of the fortress's other rooms. There were shelves of medical equipment, a small bench, and a padded table tucked away to the side. But the only real furniture worth noting, the structure that dominated the rest of room, was a tall glass tank upon a circular dais, lit in such a way that a human silhouette was only barely visible within. It was as warm and humid as the inside of a meditation chamber, though that wasn't much different from the rest of the fortress, given how muggy Mustafar was generally. The sound of Vader's breath suffused the room, and a Royal Guard stood straight at each side.

"Leave us," said a voice from the tank.

It didn't have the familiar deep richness of Vader's voice in the suit, nor was it the weak, faltering voice he had when unmasked. It was somewhere between the two, baritone, a bit tinny. The result of a compromise, Tarkin suspected, between voice technology that sounded the way Vader wanted and voice technology that could survive in a bacta tank. There was something in the intonation, though, that was unmistakably Vader's.

Both Royal Guards saluted and silently left the room by the airlock, leaving Vader and Tarkin alone.

"Good morning, Vader," said Tarkin, even though it was afternoon. He felt uncertain of himself.

"Come closer," said Vader. "You may look at me."

Tarkin obeyed, swallowing his nervousness. In its way, this was a version of that first unmasking, taken to its logical conclusion. Vader had never shown his full body to a lover, not since his accident, and his body before that had essentially been a different one. Tarkin had only been able to guess based on Vader's own vague descriptions what it would be like.

He walked up the steps, straight and correct, until his own shadow fell against the glass. Leaning up against it, he took a steadying breath and looked in.

Vader's body was blurred by the fluid around it, but up close to the glass like this, Tarkin could see enough. His prosthetics had been removed, and he floated, suspended, with the stump-limbed shape of him made plain. He hung in a set of straps from what was left of his upper arms, the bonds preventing him from floating too far and bumping the tank's edge. A transparent breath mask covered the lower half of his face, connected by snaking tubes to further apparatus at the back of the tank. Other tubes connected to his body here and there. His abbreviated thighs hung down below him.

The skin of Vader's body was as pale as the skin of his face. Scars covered him everywhere, not only the expected burn scars but countless others of every type. The surface of his torso was uneven, riddled not only with scars but with devices of various sorts. Plastic-sheathed openings where those tubes went in, auxiliary valves not currently in use, wires entering under the skin, bits of metal or plastic that Tarkin couldn't identify. He had felt this surface through the fabric of Vader's suit, but he hadn't realized how much of it was fully implanted into the flesh. Tarkin couldn't quite imagine what it would feel like, living in a body like that, having to mold the movements of one's muscles and inner parts around such intrusions.

It was plain, simply from the ratio of organic to inorganic material, that very few of the parts of Vader's body still functioned on their own. _My corpse of a body,_ Vader had called it. Yet Vader was still so undeniably alive. T he shape of him was so strong in the midst of all this, the shortened limbs thick with muscle, the chest broad. The rib cage gently expanded and contracted with the breath's tireless rhythm. The head turned, following Tarkin's movements intently. Even here, there was immense power coiled. If the glass between them somehow disappeared and Tarkin reached through the fluid, that seemingly helpless body could still catch him, crush him, maneuver however it wished.

It was not like other bodies he had seen before. But Tarkin didn't have to remind himself that this was Vader to know he felt affection, fascination, desire.

Whoever had designed the lighting in here, obscuring Vader's form to most who entered, had done Vader a small mercy. Tarkin was glad he had that level of modesty from his guards, at least. Vader was naked, but his body was criscrossed by the straps that held him, and that kept the various life-support devices attached. His cock was present and accounted for, though somewhat lost in a nest of waste disposal tubes. His face was visible enough, through the bacta and the straps and the breath mask, for Tarkin to recognize emotion in it. Nervousness, determination, self-conscious longing.

"Hello," said Tarkin, raising his hand to touch his fingertips to the glass. It was warm, he discovered, like everything else in the room. "It's good to see you, Vader."

"Now you see," said Vader, wistfully. "What I really am."

"Yes."

"But you do not mind this, either, do you? The way you look at me-" He broke off.

Tarkin suspected that many of Vader's lovers would have enjoyed looking at him this way, if he'd been trusting enough to give them the chance. For someone perverse enough to desire Darth Vader in the first place, this wasn't much of a leap. But now wasn't the time for that discussion.

He felt a familiar tendril of Force-sensation up his spine, but there was something wrong with it this time. It felt patchy, hesitant, as if Vader could barely hold the power together to create the effect he desired. Vader scowled in frustration and let go of it, and it winked out.

Tarkin hadn't come here expecting Force sex. He'd known Vader's powers were temporarily drained. It was unsettling, though. Feeling this way, with his body, just how bad the damage had been.

"Can you hear me?" he asked. "Em-four mentioned..."

"I can hear you. There is a sonic transducer built into the foot of the tank. It works best when servants kneel and speak into it. But for now you are standing atop it, and the vibration is transmitted to it through your feet. With the room made quiet, that is enough. If I have difficulty understanding, I will ask you to descend."

"Ah." Tarkin looked down; he could see a grating there now that he knew what to look for. "And can you see me as well?"

"Somewhat.  I can see your outline, and most of the colors of you. At this range, I can feel where you are and what you are doing with the Force, and that helps resolve ambiguity."

"Huh. Even with your powers attenuated as they are?"

"I can still feel." Vader sounded embarrassed. "That has not changed. My awareness of minds, in the Force, has not been impaired. Only my ability to _do_ anything about them."

Tarkin peered up into those strange yellow eyes. He belatedly realized he'd put his hand on the glass without asking permission, and pulled back. "Is it harmful if I touch anything? I still have a bit of a virus, and Em-four told me-"

Vader's voice carried amusement. "I already have your cold. You cannot give it to me twice. In any case, this room is disinfected daily, and I will not leave my tank today."

"Ah. Well, that's good to know." He smiled reassuringly. "And now, see, we just had a whole conversation where you told me details about your health issues and nothing exploded. It's not so bad, is it?"

"That remains to be seen," said Vader, but his tone was light.

"I don't believe I ever managed to thank you. For, ah, landing us safely."

"You have nothing to thank me for."

"Well, we disagree on that." Tarkin was distracted by a further thought. "Could you understand me when I spoke to you in the meditation chamber?"

"Yes. Your face was close to mine, and the chamber removes most ambient noise."

Tarkin winced, remembering how long it had taken for them to hear the alarms in there. "Fair. What about seeing me?"

"Somewhat. It depended on your position."

"Did that bother you?"

"No."

He and Vader regarded each other, a long, floating moment, and Tarkin took a deep breath. So much for the preliminaries. But the talk that they truly needed was a deeper and more difficult one, and there was no point in not starting it.

"So," he said. "On the, ah, topic of what we were doing in the meditation chamber."

"Yes?"

"You said, in the temple, that you could not ask me to touch you again. I said that we should think about it and wait a while. We're now no longer in the temple, and I've also spoken to Em-four. She was somewhat critical of my trying to make the choices myself. But she said she was capable of assisting in certain ways. We simply need to sort things out between the two of us first. We need to decide together what we want and how we want to navigate its risks. Have you had the opportunity to think about that, yourself?"

"Yes," said Vader.

"And?"

"I do not know where to begin. I have the desires I have always had. But the danger is so great. I cannot be a danger to you. If the danger were removed, I would desperately desire everything you can give me. But I do not know if it can be, even in the ways Em-four proposed. I do not know if that is enough. I do not know how to choose."

Tarkin worked his jaw, considering the situation. "It sounds as though Em-four gave you a bit more detail about her plans than she gave to me." That made sense, though. M4 had been strongly of the opinion that this was Vader's decision.

"Perhaps."

"It's something of an irony, isn't it? Danger to me is the hard limit for you. And for me it's the reverse."

"I understand that now," said Vader. "I did not before."

"Nothing is ever entirely free from risk, though, is it? Even the simplest sexual encounter carries risk. You don't present the typical set of biological risks, in your suit, but you might still make various sorts of mistake. What we've been doing is, obviously, a very high risk for both of us." He paused, working his jaw. He had to phrase this very carefully. "So I suppose one avenue that might be fruitful, rather than seeing this in black and white, is if we each think about what specific level of risk we are willing to pose to each other, and then we see if Em-four has techniques that fall within it. Does that sound right to you?"

"It... could," said Vader.

"In my case, it would help to have more information. Can I ask what it was that you flashed back to in the escape pod?"

"A medical procedure."

Tarkin frowned, mildly startled; that wasn't an answer he'd expected. For a moment he wondered if he'd made the wrong assessment of M4-R3K's character entirely.

"Not a typical one," Vader clarified quickly: perhaps reading his thoughts. "This was an old procedure, before I had Em-four. A procedure making use of the Force."

"Oh," said Tarkin, and yes, that did make more sense, especially given the way Vader had called for his master. Tarkin had heard of the Force being used to heal, and he knew the Emperor dictated Vader's life on many levels, but he hadn't taken that to its logical conclusion. Tarkin hated ordinary sick bays so much already; _this_ was beyond his ability to imagine. "Were there many of those, back then?"

"Not many. But - several. Before we understood how much of me there is that cannot heal. I had not realized they could come back to me that way. When I judged the risks before, I was thinking only of other traumas. The ones I already told you, on Scarif."

Tarkin nodded. "That's what I thought. So, the major risk we're dealing with is that you don't know what other traumas might be lurking, for us to run into unexpectedly."

"Yes."

"Any other risks, physical risks, I imagine Em-four would have an answer about immediately. But this is the unknown one. For both of us, really, because you were a danger to both of us in that state."

"I was." Vader hesitated. "But - Em-four did have an answer about it, somewhat."

"Oh?"

"She said there are... ways. Careful explorations, with heavy safety measures in place. Further triggers could be detected and their effects gradually extinguished through controlled exposure. She would be willing to oversee that, but it would not be without risk to both of us."

Tarkin tried to imagine that. Vader would have to be restrained for something like that, physically or chemically, if violence was a risk. It undoubtedly wouldn't be a pleasant setup for him, even if he did maintain contact with reality.

"Let me ask you this," he said. He was most concerned about the risks to Vader, and Vader was most concerned about the risks to him, but Vader couldn't simply make the decision for him, any more than he could for Vader. "Supposing I looked Em-four's plan over thoroughly and asked questions, and at the end of it I decided I was comfortable with the level of risk, so long as you were also comfortable and interested. In that scenario, would it be something you'd want to do?"

Vader hesitated longer, this time.

"Yes," he blurted out at last. His voice was strained, as if it was difficult for him to accept he was saying it. "Yes. I want it."

Tarkin nodded. "Then let's keep that option open, and when we've sorted out as much as we can the two of us, I'll ask her to show me those plans. Shall I?"

"Yes."

"Do you have any idea what triggered you? Was it simply being touched on that part of your body?"

Vader looked hesitant. Tarkin could tell how difficult it was for him, admitting to vulnerabilities of this type. But he was trying, and that was what mattered. "I believe it was a confluence of several things. Not only being touched over the ribs, but being touched there while feeling the cold. And..."

He trailed off.

"And?" Tarkin prompted.

"I believe there is a third. But I do not know how to explain it in a way you will understand."

Tarkin crossed his arms. "Try me. If it doesn't make sense to me, I'll ask for clarification."

"You will think that I..." Vader's face contorted, and he visibly struggled to get the words out. "That I am not safe. That I cannot ever truly follow those rules of negotiation that so concern you, if this is what triggers me."

Tarkin blinked. This was not the type of complaint he had been anticipating.

"In the past," he said carefully, "when you've been concerned in this manner that your dangers will be too overwhelming for me, it's usually proved to be false. But if there's information that you believe could make me change my mind, I need to hear it. If it doesn't worry me, I'll say so, and we'll both be relieved. And if it _is_ a danger to me, I have a right to hear."

"You kept reminding me," said Vader, "that I did not have to continue. Asking me if I was sure, again and again. That was the third part of it, I think. Every time you reminded me, it worsened."

It had, hadn't it? _I can handle it, master._

Tarkin's stomach turned.  He could imagine exactly how such a trigger might be implanted over time, and he understood why Vader would fear Tarkin's reponse. Vader was not the only person who'd ever been taught that the only acceptable answer to  _are you sure_ was  _yes._ But that kind of trauma presented unique and obvious difficulties in a kink setting. In extreme cases, people with that sort of damage couldn't negotiate in good faith at all. The extreme ones were generally easy to spot: they were the unfortunate submissives who insisted they'd do anything, who went with the first dominant that offered, who responded to even the most extreme abuse with a panicked nod and a _yes, anything, please._

Which... come to think of it, was not far off from how Vader approached certain things. His recklessness, his lack of understanding of his own limits.  When Tarkin had played dominant to Vader on Scarif, it had taken some prompting to get him to admit he had limits at all, and the ones he'd expressed had been vague. Later, he'd goaded Tarkin into hurting him more than he'd planned. He'd been so insistent that he wasn't fragile. He'd... done that sort of thing on many occasions, really, even when there were no other overt signs of trauma. Even when he wasn't playing submissive. Oh dear. Oh  _dear._ No wonder M4 had seemingly wanted to bite Tarkin's head off.

He took a deep breath. Vader would sense his revulsion; there was no help for that. But he had to remain outwardly composed. He had to make it clear through his actions that Vader himself was not what revolted him. "That's - interesting to know, Vader, thank you. I can see why it concerned you. I should ask - have there been times with me when you preferred not to do something, but didn't say so, for fear of running into this issue?"

Vader paused to think, which was good. Vader should actually take time to think about this. "I do not think so. Not intentionally. I am capable, under normal circumstances, of complaining when distressed. You need only remember Scarif for that."

Tarkin fractionally relaxed. That was the best possible answer, really. A _no_ that came too quickly, too glibly, would likely have been another trauma response. A _not intentionally_ meant Vader already had some awareness of how deep a problem like this could potentially go. Tarkin could work with a _not intentionally_. He could trust Vader to think about it more on his own, later, if that was his answer.

He wasn't sure if the point about Scarif was valid or not. Vader had certainly made complaints there, but his noticeably strange, limit-denying behavior had begun there, too. Problems like this weren't necessarily universal in a person's life; they could apply only to certain contexts, or certain states of mind.

"Then is it being asked for consent, itself, that causes difficulties, or being asked repeatedly?"

"Repeatedly, and in confluence with the other things. I never like it when you ask repeatedly; it makes me impatient. But when I am not cold and you are not touching my skin, it does not harm me."

"Does it bother you when I check in through other means? Like when I ask how you're feeling."

"Not to the same degree."

Tarkin nodded. The fact that Vader could articulate these nuances meant things were better than he'd briefly feared. "Well. One can imagine devising a workable protocol within those constraints. Though that brings me to the second issue, really."

"What issue?"

"Aside from the issue of risk, there's the issue of power."  Tarkin shifted slightly, uncomfortable. M4's criticism still rang in his ears. "You brought this up yourself back on Scarif, as I recall. You said that, when you have power over me, we negotiate it. But when I have power over you, it's subtler, and we often forget to. It's occurred to me that, when we're experimenting with things that cause you physical and mental distress, that's another sort of power that you're giving me. And I didn't intend to use that power for my own gratification, but we didn't fully negotiate it, and - well, perhaps I have."

Vader shifted slightly in his tank. Tarkin was briefly distracted by the movement: how much physical freedom did Vader have in there? How easy was it for him to slip from the bonds that held him, if he wished? Could he do simple exercises, stretches and meditative movements in the bacta, unencumbered by his armor? Tarkin imagined graceful underwater exercises, those bared muscles flexing around the devices implanted between them - oh dear, that was a very distracting mental image.

"I do not think of it that way," said Vader. "I know you want me vulnerable. We discussed that on Scarif, too. But w hen I mistook you for my master, it was not because you felt dominant. I was merely lost in my memory and could not recall anyone else who might touch me. When I knelt to you, I simply wanted your attention. If I had not had that mental lever to pull, I would have used another."

Tarkin impulsively moved his hand against the glass.  As if the whole apparatus was some great beast, as if Vader could possibly feel him stroking it. If only it were that easy. "I do feel guilty, though, giving you those levers. I'm wired a certain way, you see. You respond in certain ways when you're in distress, becoming more vulnerable, seeking my approval. And I instinctively enjoy that. I can be diligent at reining those desires in, but because of how _you're_ wired, you still feel them in my head. So we're left with a situation where I can't help reinforcing behaviors that hurt you."

"That flashback would have hurt both of us no matter the role I took," Vader countered. "If I had played dominant, ordered you to touch me, punished you for refusing, it would have gone the same way."

Tarkin  took a breath, considering how to work his concerns. He didn't want to explicitly invoke the Emperor's name, and he didn't know how the Jedi Order had done things; it was very possible that this wasn't even only Palpatine. "People have demanded your obedience before, haven't they? Used your power for their own ends, and punished you when you defied them. And you've - adapted to that, as to anything."

Vader looked down. "It is as you say."

"But you don't _like_ it. I can see that plainly from here."

"I do not wish to discuss this."

"I don't need an exhaustive recounting of your trauma history, Vader. But we do need to discuss how this affects us. Bear with me just a minute more. Do you remember, in the escape pod, when I stopped speaking to you for a few minutes? And you called it a punishment."

Vader's voice was hesitant, surly, but he looked back at Tarkin. "I remember that."

"I don't want that to be our dynamic, Vader. I don't want to be one of the people who have harmed you.  I don't want you to feel you have to harm yourself, or do things that are distasteful to you, just to please me."

"But you do want that," Vader said bitterly. "I feel it. You resist it at the surface, but in your heart you crave that power."

Tarkin bit the inside of his cheek. Vader had felt that ever since Scarif, or maybe longer. He had felt it, no doubt, in the temple, when Tarkin fantasized about giving Vader the whole galaxy, just so that Vader would do as Tarkin said with it. He'd resisted that temptation, but perhaps that didn't matter so much to a mind like Vader's, so in tune with the inner feelings of those around him, and so unused to restraining his own.

"It's as I said, Vader. I'm wired a certain way. But I'm capable of making decisions. There's what we want because our instincts crave it, and there's what we want because it aligns with our values and plans. There's some part of me that does want to control you against your will, I won't lie. But what I don't want is the result of that urge. The effect it would have on you. So I choose not to follow it. Sometimes I fail, and that's - part of my risk profile, I suppose. You can decide the risk is unacceptable to you, but you must understand that I intend _not_ to control you, except as I must for my own safety. Anything I do counter to that intent is simply a lapse. Like - losing my temper. Do you understand?"

Vader's voice was low and sour. "I had not expected you to sound like a Jedi."

Tarkin narrowed his eyes. "I'm not one. But if they valued self-control, they're not alone in that. For very practical reasons."

"What do you want of me, then, if not to follow your base desires?"

"Pleasurable encounters. Affection. Spending time together generally, as we did on Scarif, and on the visit before that. Playing submissive to you in the ways we both enjoy. Playing dominant on occasion if you're interested. It's only sliding into a harmful dynamic by accident that concerns me, and violating safety rules that I don't know are there." He took another breath. "If I can ask without distressing you, Vader, what do _you_ want of _me?_"

Vader didn't answer immediately. Tarkin waited it out, steely, listening to the sound of Vader's breath, watching his scarred face contort with thought. He would not rush this. He would stare Vader down the whole rest of the day, if that was what it took.

Had anyone ever asked this question to Vader before? He suspected not. When Vader played dominant, he took what he wanted; there had been no need to ask. Not until Tarkin. Not until he had a lover who made him vulnerable.

"I want to fuck you," Vader said at last, and each small admission came out strained. "I want to give you pleasure. I want to hurt you. I want to make you do as I say. I want you not to _leave._ I want to be looked at the way you look at me. I want to be cared for the way you care for me. I want to protect you. I want to kiss you again. I want your body against me. And-" He hesitated longer, and then spat the rest out harshly, as if it hurt him, as if he could only say it by wrenching it out of himself. "And I do not care if I hurt myself to get it. That is the truth you fear to know. I _cannot_ care. You can speak as long as you wish about the self-regard you wish I had, but it will not change what I am.  I will do anything to have what I want, if you let me. Anything but risk harming you."

Tarkin swallowed hard. This was the core of the problem, wasn't it? This was the thing he'd seen in Vader and not known what to do with, ever since Scarif. His greedy instincts wanted to take advantage of it, the abjection, the desperation.  His more sensible, rule-respecting mind wanted to push it away.

But the real answer was neither of those, wasn't it? It was as M4 had warned him. Even when Vader's reactions were genuinely pathological, he couldn't decide for Vader how Vader ought to feel about things. He couldn't both accept Vader's love and reject this.

But he could choose _how_ he was going to accept it.

"If you'll do anything," he replied, keeping himself composed with an effort of will, "then will you follow my rules?"

"Tell them to me."

"No new experiments with your body until we've run them by Em-four and discussed between the three of us how to mitigate the risks. You may ask me for whatever you like, and you're free to say yes or no to any suggestion of mine as you please. But if I say no to you because of safety concerns, you're not to argue, except by clarifying the applicable medical facts. Not by blustering and ordering me, not by kneeling or begging or anything else. If we both know the relevant facts and still can't agree, we'll drop it and do something else, until such time as Em-four is available. If you'll do all of that for me, Vader, then I'll be satisfied you're as safe as I want you to be, and I won't demand a thing more."

"I will do those things," Vader confirmed. "And you will give yourself to me? You will stop lecturing me, pushing me away, insisting that I need to feel differently about the risks than I do, so long as I follow those rules?"

"Yes." And it was a thrill, in spite of everything, saying that word. He didn't know how well this was going to work, but he still wanted it. He still wanted Vader so badly. "I can still say no to you for all the other usual reasons, of course, but - yes."

"Will you agree to one more thing?" Vader asked softly.

Tarkin glanced up at him. "Yes?"

"In the temple, you saw much of me that I did not wish for you to see. Ways that I had been hurt.  I have meditated about that. I did not like it. If it were possible, I would not want anyone in the galaxy to see those things. But you will no doubt see more, if we continue."

"Go on," said Tarkin, with a cautious nod.

"If it is necessary for safety, or for the procedures with Em-four, then I will tell you what you need to know. Willingly. But in return you must agree you will not pry further.  You will not treat my pain as a problem for you to solve.  You will not tell me what I should have done, or how much more critically I should have thought. And you will not interfere, with the Emperor or anyone else, in an attempt to solve it. You will let it belong to me, and to me alone. Then I will be satisfied that _you_ are safe."

Tarkin looked down. This, he knew, was the final part of what he'd agreed to in the temple. Some part of him still wished he'd been bold enough to say _yes,_ when his Emperor sat in the crosshairs before him. Some part of him, no doubt, always would.

"Yes," he said. "I can follow that."

He looked back up at Vader, floating there so strangely and smelling like a sickbay. Vader carried so much pain of so many kinds, depths of it that Tarkin would never understand. It was what made him strong. Whether the exchange was worth it or not, Tarkin would never be able to calculate.

"It is difficult for me to accept," said Vader at last. "It has been difficult since the beginning, even though I feel it in your mind. To believe that you still want me, after everything. I do not understand how you can."

"But I do." He leaned against the tank, resting his forehead against it, so close that his breath fogged the glass. "Force, Vader, I do."

On impulse, he tried to send the force of his wanting directly to Vader. He didn't truly know how Vader's senses worked, what made some feelings and thoughts more salient to him than others. But he focused on it mentally, brought it to the forefront of his mind. He raised his eyes to Vader's form and wallowed shamelessly in the feeling of looking at him. How it felt to be let in this way and allowed to look, alone of all Vader's living lovers. He adored Vader, the strangeness and the strength of him, the monstrous power and the all-too-human pain. He _longed_ for Vader. For the Force-touch that he knew would return when Vader was well. The feel of that vulnerable body in his arms, its strong stump-limbs moving against him. Vader's soft mouth pressed to his mouth...

"Don't," Vader said, suddenly agitated. "Do not tease me. If you dared look at me that way when I was well, I would force you to the ground and claim you. But my strength is gone. I can't-"

"Should I stop?" Tarkin asked. He knew he could only ask this question once, but he felt oddly bold. It felt as though they'd made a deal. It felt as though they should seal it. He put a hand to the waist of his trousers and toyed with the unfamiliar fastenings. "Or should I do something about it for you?"

The answer that came was not a word but a rush of Force-sensation, patchy and weak, between his legs. It wavered, but after a moment of effort it settled in, the same as it always did, when Vader focused on Tarkin's sensations. Vader didn't have the strength to hurt and pleasure him, or to focus over his whole body as they were accustomed, but it seemed he could do this much. He could take the part he wanted most.

"There are supplies on the shelf to your right," said Vader. "Medical lubricant. Cleaning cloths. Anything you need."

Tarkin stumbled down the steps and to the shelf. He could see the supplies, but he didn't want to take his eyes off Vader for long. He concentrated on keeping that feeling uppermost in his mind, the shameless focus on Vader, the admiration and desire, as he quickly took what he needed and returned to the tank's side. Then he undid the front of his trousers and drew himself out, running a finger lightly up his hardening length.

"Can you feel this?" he asked, wanting to be sure.

"Yes," said Vader, and his voice was nearly a moan.

Tarkin tipped a tiny amount of the lubricant onto his fingers. He stroked himself, slowly at first but firmly, savoring it. He was surprised at the strength of his own reaction. Something had been pent up within him and, in all the confusion and stress of the mission, he had nearly not noticed. He needed release. Vader had fucked him in the Sith temple, and there had been pleasure in it with the terror, but that hadn't been the relief he needed. That rite had been so focused on putting new feelings _in,_ not on letting them out. He needed something simple now, something he could control.

Judging from Vader's response, he needed that just as badly. Maybe worse.

He craned his neck upward and focused on Vader's face. He could see enough. Vader's lips parted under the breath mask, his chin tilting ever so slightly back, the strange eyes half-lidded. He'd seen in the meditation chamber how circular this might become: him getting off on the unguarded faces Vader made, Vader feeding on his pleasure and making more of those faces accordingly. He hadn't wanted it then, because of the danger. He did now.

He didn't know what Vader saw or felt in his mind, but Tarkin wanted to give him everything he could. All his lust, all his pleasure, all his love. Let Vader take that, the way Tarkin had taken the Dark Side. Let it fill him.

_Now you see what I really am,_ Vader had said, but Vader had always been more than this body,  however perversely attractive it might be. He was this fragile flesh augmented with its various devices, but he was also the hulking shadow he appeared as in his suit. And he was some portion of the Force, an immaterial presence suffusing this room, even if he lacked the strength presently to wield it. He was all three of those things, merged into one, the way the Dark Side itself in all its guises of power and suffering had been one thing at its core. Vader was all around him.

Tarkin was moving faster now, staring shamelessly through the glass into Vader's enraptured face, fucking his own hand. He didn't intend to draw this out.

"Tell me," Vader murmured. "What are you imagining?"

Tarkin panted slightly. He didn't know how to explain certain parts of his thoughts, the ones about wanting their minds to mesh together, the ones about Vader's nature. But he feasted his eyes on Vader's strange body, and he knew what he wanted.

"Kissing you," he answered. "Pressing you to me. Running my hands across your skin. Feeling you move against me, so strong, the texture of you bared against me. Tonguing my way down your neck."

He could have continued, but he was distracted by a movement. Vader's body was moving in response to his words, not much yet, not violently. Gently enough that he could imagine it stilled by the weight of the suit, an impulse perhaps often present but normally invisible. Vader might not even realize he was doing it. Vader's cock hadn't stirred, it lay soft and ignored where it had been from the first, but Vader's jaw had gone slack, the lips working soundlessly in pleasure, and his limbs were moving. Swirling the fluid around them, half-obscuring themselves.

Vader was _writhing_ for him, and that pushed him over the edge. The scarred thighs parting, the spine beginning to arch.

"_Vader-_" he gasped, and came into his fist.

It was only a moderate peak, warm and simple. But it released something very deep inside him, something he'd barely been aware of holding back. Relief filled him, muscles untensing, breath sighing out. He watched it all unspool, in parallel, on Vader's face. How Vader bared his teeth, feral and silent, at the moment of ecstasy. How he then relaxed, the scarred shoulders lowering and the limbs drifting back into place.

Tarkin stayed still, letting the moment linger, until Vader had settled again.

He still didn't truly know how this was going to work out. Whether there'd be a proper path, with M4's input, to everything they wanted or not. He and Vader seemed to constantly tilt on the brink of disaster. But they were here together. They were committed. Tarkin wanted this, and he was going to see it through.

He took a disposable cleaning cloth from its shelf and wiped himself off, his hands and his cock and a couple of small drops that had escaped to the floor, before doing his trousers back up. He dropped the cloth into a medical waste bucket, and then impulsively he moved to sit on the steps at the tank's foot. He leaned on it, resting his head against the smoothness of the glass. He was more tired than he'd thought.

"Feeling any better?" he prompted, when Vader's silence lingered.

"Yes," said Vader, but his voice was more ragged now, worn thin. "But I will need to sleep again soon."

"That's a pity. I was thinking it might be time to bring Em-four back in." But Tarkin was tired in the afterglow, too, his eyelids drooping. Perhaps he'd go to his guest room and have a bit of a power nap. He wasn't all that behind on his messages; he could afford it, probably. "Tomorrow, perhaps."

"You will be here tomorrow?"

"Yes." Tarkin pressed his palm to the glass, trying to be reassuring. "The Emperor has informed me I'm expected back on Coruscant within the week. But that's really plenty of time. We have a few more days."

"I am glad," said Vader.

Tarkin sat there in comfortable silence a moment more, and then he struggled to his feet. There were things to do, after all, even if napping was one of them.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he said. "And for having this talk." And for saving him, heedless of the cost, so many times; and for inviting him in where he was most vulnerable, trusting him when for eighteen years he'd trusted no one else. For so many other things. But they'd disagree again if Tarkin said that part aloud. "Let me know when you're awake again, won't you?"

"I will make a point of it."

He turned to go.

"Tarkin," said Vader, just as he was about to walk back down the steps. "In all our discussions of Sith doctrine, you never thought to ask me how the Sith define love."

"Do you have a definition for it?" said Tarkin, turning back to him. "I had the impression that, doctrinally speaking, you only bothered with unpleasant things."

"The greatest heights of power come from suffering," said Vader. "From fear, anger, hate and pain. So we define a thing of power, not by the pleasure it brings, but the shadow it casts. You have brought so many fears into my life, new and old. I fear that we will lose what we have. That you will leave, or something will happen to you. That one of us will make a mistake too damaging to be fixed. That, when you see too much of me, you will no longer want me. When I am with you, I constantly fear these things. And that is how I know I love you."

Tarkin took a long breath, touching his fingertips back to the glass, feeling the sorrow and the truth of it. He'd known, but it was the first time either of them had said the word aloud.

"Yes," he said. "I love you that way, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last "proper" chapter in the story, and it's also where we're taking a bit of a break. I really pushed myself a little with this one because I REALLY wanted to get it done and posted before TROS comes out. I happen to like the sequels and I'm cautiously optimistic about this one, but it's pretty clear to me that, one way or another, it's going to be full of BIG VILLAIN FEELS and I'm going to need to spend a while processing whatever those are before I can return to this. Plus, I also owe some not-Star-Wars writing to people for the holidays, whoops.
> 
> The next 2-3 chapters, when we return, will be a sort of extended epilogue, mainly devoted to little scenes showing how Vader and Tarkin's physical relationship progresses over the next year or so of canon time. Bearing in mind that I've historically been VERY BAD at predicting the speed with which I'll write this stuff, but I'm guessing you can expect that probably in January-ish.
> 
> There WILL be more Tank Vader, and more skin contact and villain cuddles. Watch this space.
> 
> Comments are, as always, love <3


	16. Epilogue, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which therapeutic protocols are designed and carried out; Tarkin adjusts his work-life balance; Vader safewords out of getting compliments; and there are a few months' worth of soft, quiet moments in between it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note 1: I couldn't actually make it to January. Raise your hand if you are surprised :P
> 
> Note 2: This is a LONG-ASS CHAPTER and tbh it covers less ground than the first part of the epilogue was supposed to. I am looking at my outline and wondering what I was smoking when I thought I could fit all these different topics into two chapters of epilogue. Relatedly, I have altered the predicted chapter count again.
> 
> The epilogue chapters might keep being slowish from here because I have some other stuff going on, but, like... slowish by my standards, in which two weeks between chapters is "slow," not slowish by the standards of a normal fanfic author with a life.
> 
> Note 3: I am pretty certain this is not how PTSD therapy actually works in real life. You know how there's goofy Star Wars physics? This is goofy Star Wars clinical psychology. Please do not try it at home.

Slowly, then. Getting this right would take months at the least; perhaps even years. Even hammering out the details of the protocol they were going to use took longer than that one visit. The plan was finalized long-distance, over a secured comm line, holograms of Vader and M4 flickering side by side over top of the desk Tarkin used at home.

The medical details were only moderately difficult. M4 already knew how she wanted to handle those. But Tarkin also wanted to work out the subtler parts of how he should behave. He had power when Vader was vulnerable like this, and he wanted to use that power responsibly. Giving Vader as much freedom as was practical, monitoring his reactions without distressing him with repeated check-ins. But no method he came up with for doing so seemed to sit right, and Vader was frustratingly indifferent to them all. It was M4 who broke the stalemate.

"All this kinky stuff you do with each other," she said, "it's fake, right?"

Tarkin blinked at the hologram. Generally the things Vader did with him felt very real at the time. "What do you mean?"

"It's fake. Lord Vader's bigger and stronger than you and could choke you to death in five seconds, but that's not why he plays dominant with you, right? He does it because that's what you agreed you'd do. You tried it the other way on Scarif, and you weren't suddenly stronger than him that day. You just made a different agreement."

"Er," said Tarkin. "Yes, but-"

"So," M4 barreled on, "just because Lord Vader's doing something that's risky for him and makes him vulnerable, that doesn't mean he has to play submissive, right?"

Tarkin blinked at her a bit more.

"Have him be in charge," said M4. She turned to Vader, or at least in what Tarkin assumed was Vader's direction; they were two separate holograms, and the way they were standing in whatever room they were in didn't match up with their visual arrangement on his desk. "He didn't want you to do that before because of safety, right, Lord Vader? But now I'm in charge of safety. You can be in charge of everything else. Governor Tarkin touching your skin can be a service he does for you, on your orders. You can treat him accordingly. How does that sound?"

Vader, who'd been quiet up until now, perked up. "I like that idea."

Tarkin sighed. He was a switch, after all; he'd followed Vader's orders before. He was mostly chagrined he hadn't thought of it first.

*

Tarkin also had to rearrange his schedule, which was no mean feat. M4's therapy plan required him to visit Mustafar on a regular basis. Tarkin would normally have had great difficulty with that, but Hethea 1 had emboldened him. It wasn't much of an abdication of duty to insist that he needed, say, every third weekend free. The endless stream of people who needed meetings with him on Coruscant could easily cleave to that schedule. The hard part was his travel schedule on the _Sovereign._ After a bit of hand-wringing, he decided to appoint one of his favorite aides as a deputy moff, with great pomp and pageantry and a small new insignia, and to delegate all but the most urgent and delicate visits to him. Emergencies would still arise, but that mostly solved it.

He felt regretful. He could imagine Thalassa's sardonic voice asking why he hadn't done this for his actual family years ago. He could imagine, more pressingly, what Imperial High Command were probably saying. That he was losing his edge in his old age. Growing too worn-out to wield real galactic power, or simply too distracted by his habitual sexual indiscretions. There was a bit of truth in both, really, but none of it could be helped.

Vader had prophesied, on their first date, that Tarkin would die in pursuit of some grand and dangerous goal. He found himself taking comfort in that notion. Even if he drew back from his work a bit, Tarkin wasn't destined to fade into total irrelevance. With any luck, he'd at least stay in the game long enough for Project Stardust.

*

Once travel time and local time differences were accounted for, each weekend with Vader meant only a two-night visit to Mustafar. Arriving in the evening, spending the full subsequent day, and departing the next one at Mustafar's noon. Within those constraints, as the months went by, Tarkin and Vader settled into something that looked very much like a routine.

When Tarkin arrived, Vader was ready for him; he often had something specific prepared. A theatrically sadistic set piece with which to welcome his lover home, made out of whatever odd fantasies had occurred to him since the last visit. He'd suspend Tarkin precariously over the river of lava while he Force-fucked him, or pursue him around the fortress like an implacable predator, or pen him in and make him choose between one strange humiliation and another. Then when that was over, Tarkin would go to his guest room, get unpacked, and clean himself.

There were reasons why sex appeared so early in the routine, and Vader's usual impatience was one. But there were practical reasons, too. Therapy worked better if they both got the pent-up sexual energy out of their systems before they started.

M4 had a role in greeting Tarkin, too. Once he'd washed up, she appeared in the guest room to run a diagnostic scan. Even when Tarkin felt himself to be in peak condition, she meticulously checked for anything infectious that might be in its incubation stage. If she found anything, he could help with Vader's therapy, but only under strict conditions. He wore a medical smock, gloves, and mask to their therapy sessions on those weekends, looking like an absurd surgeon's assistant. He could touch Vader's skin, but only with the medical gloves on, and certainly no kissing.

Usually, though, M4 hmmed and frowned at the scanner and then told Tarkin he was cleared for bare-skin contact that day. After which, he had time to go back downstairs and decompress a bit. He sat with Vader - usually in the entrance hall; occasionally the workshop or hangar, if Vader had something he wanted to show off - and they caught up on what they'd both been up to during their time apart.

When the evening had worn itself out, M4 appeared again. She made Tarkin wash his hands and rinse his mouth a final time, and she ushered them both to Vader's second-floor quarters. Then the real work began.

*

That first night of the first visit, Tarkin was more nervous than he wanted to admit. They'd worked out a protocol by this time, of course. But, like any new intimate activity, particularly with Vader, it was hard to say exactly how it would go until it went.

Tonight had been designed as merely a test run. They'd go through all the setup and the protocol, but they wouldn't actually do anything new. No touching new parts of Vader's body. Not even exposing any new parts, though technically Tarkin had already seen everything in the tank. There'd be an unmasking and a single kiss, and if all went well, that would be that.

Tarkin watched at a respectful distance as M4 pulled the padded medical table into the middle of Vader's room, the empty tank looming over them like an unlit lantern. Vader walked to the table and lay down on his back. Tarkin noted how quickly and completely he stilled in that position, a passivity no doubt born of long experience.

M4 strapped him down, a step that Tarkin understood was not part of their usual routine. The straps were less substantial than the setup he'd seen in the tank, but their inadequacy was the point. No set of bonds could actually make Darth Vader safe. Even fully immobilized, he could still murder everyone in an instant with his mind. The straps would merely keep him a little steadier if he felt some mundane animal urge to thrash around. And they would make it easier, in an emergency, for M4 to reach him with a tranquilizer.

She had the tranquilizer ready, too, a prepped injector with the correct dose hanging like a weapon at her waist. This was a drug considerably more potent and fast-acting than the sedatives Tarkin had seen used on Vader before. If he began to lose control, M4 could use it to knock him out in a matter of seconds. That was still enough time for Vader to kill people or disassemble her, if he really wanted to. He'd have a bad hangover afterwards and would require some recovery work. But having it available reduced the risk slightly, and that was the best they could do.

"Ready, Lord Vader?" said M4.

"I am ready," said Vader.

M4 gently pulled off the top of Vader's helmet and removed his mask. M4, until further notice, would be the only one who got to undress him like this. She'd set up these sessions in the way that she'd medically determined was best. Every other part of the protocol, every part where Vader or Tarkin had a choice in what to do, was merely a filling-in of the human gaps.

Tarkin waited, quietly.

"Tarkin," said Vader, in his weak, unmasked voice. "Attend me."

Tarkin walked to Vader's side. For now, he would spend these sessions standing or leaning over the table, not crawling on top as he'd done in the meditation chamber. Less chance of accidentally jostling something or touching the wrong patch of skin. He inclined his head respectfully. "Yes, Lord Vader."

He looked down into Vader's strange yellow eyes.

Tarkin had followed Vader's orders before as part of a scene, but not often, and neither of those scenes had gone perfectly. He knew in advance what would be asked of him this time, and it was simpler than before. He was sure he could carry it all out correctly. It didn't stop him from feeling nervous. Vader's vulnerability in this state was so striking. Vader looked as nervous as Tarkin was, and Tarkin wanted not to fail him.

M4 stood at the ready on the table's other side, standing at an awkward angle to give them space, while also staying close enough to administer the tranquilizer at a moment's notice. "Ready, Governor Tarkin?"

"Yes." M4 hadn't made him call _her_ by a formal title, at least.

She took a last close look at the lights of Vader's indicator panel. "Okay, you're cleared for contact whenever."

"Contact," by the protocol they'd worked out, meant specifically the forms of skin contact they'd agreed on for this session in advance, and nothing else.

Tarkin waited for Vader's command. This next part of the protocol was relatively unscripted. Vader could do anything he liked with Tarkin in between being cleared for contact and actually having it, so long as it wasn't sexual, didn't put either body under undue stress, and didn't violate Tarkin's usual stated limits.

Vader took hold of Tarkin's head with a Force-grip like a fist, its amorphous fingers tugging at the roots of Tarkin's hair. Vader pulled him down like that, bringing them eye to eye. Close enough to feel the draft of each other's breath; close enough that even Vader's impaired vision could take in every detail of him. Tarkin steadied himself against the edge of the table with his hands.

"You are mine," Vader breathed.

"Yes, Lord Vader. I'm yours."

"Kiss me," said Vader.

Before touching Vader, Tarkin had to be both cleared by M4 _and_ ordered by Vader. But in the end he still had to do it himself. If he didn't touch Vader by his own will and under his own power, it wouldn't produce the neurological byproducts the therapy required.

Delicately, he shut his eyes and closed the distance between their mouths. It was a soft kiss, nothing ambitious, but he let it linger a few seconds as Vader pressed into it, kissed back.

It was as sweet as kissing Vader ever had been.

When the kiss broke, Vader let go of him, and he straightened, awaiting his next instruction.

"Color, Lord Vader?" M4 asked.

Since Vader and Tarkin already had a safeword that wasn't a color, M4 had appropriated the color system for medical use. After any skin contact, Vader was to use color code words to report his mental state. _Red_ meant he felt himself slipping into a flashback, the dangerous kind, one that he couldn't control; _red_ meant he was instructing M4 to use the tranquilizer. An inability to produce any color words, when prompted, would also be treated as red. _Orange_ meant that he was struggling with a traumatic memory but still felt largely in command of himself. _Yellow_ meant that he was having some other difficult emotion - anger or grief at his own limitations, perhaps, or more pain than expected. _Green_ meant everything was fine.

"Yellow," said Vader, staring up at Tarkin.

The protocol for yellow was that Vader would decide what to do next. He and Tarkin and M4 had talked about the kinds of things Tarkin liked to say to him, in their meditation chamber encounters. _Stay with me_ and _I'm here_ and the like. M4 had helped them tease out the different psychological purposes of these statements: giving Vader something to focus on, reassuring him, reminding him of the facts of his surroundings, a dozen other small things. Vader could ask for any one of these things, or a combination; he could also ask Tarkin to choose for him, to lean in and say whatever he thought best. There were specific commands for all of these, though in a pinch he could ask with normal words.

But Vader didn't ask for anything, and if they were only at yellow then this was also acceptable. He stared up at Tarkin in his unfocused way, something bittersweet twisting his face.

Tarkin could understand why this would be a bittersweet moment. He felt something of that himself. It was the first time they'd kissed since before the _Overseer_'s destruction; the first time they'd touched at all since that awful moment in the escape pod. It was such a relief to still have this, and yet they had so little of it for tonight. Just this one moment of contact, which was in many ways already over. They would have so little, with such difficulty, for all the foreseeable future.

He wanted to reach out and say something reassuring, but that wasn't protocol. Vader got to decide what Vader needed.

He waited, looking into Vader's eyes, until he felt Vader's gloved hand rise and twine its fingers into Tarkin's.

Vader's prosthetic limbs existed outside the realm of therapy. He already touched things with them all the time. Vader could touch Tarkin however he liked with his hands or his feet or the Force, so long as it didn't distract from their other tasks.

"You are mine," Vader repeated, tightening his grip on Tarkin's hand.

"Yes, Lord Vader," Tarkin said. He squeezed back. Very little else, in that moment, needed to be said. "I'm yours."

*

After evening therapy, Tarkin had a cup of tea and went to bed in his guest room, while M4 put Vader the rest of the way into his tank. In the morning, Tarkin woke and had breakfast in the dining hall. When Vader was awake and ready, M4 would come by to make Tarkin wash up yet again, and then while Vader was getting his suit on they'd have a morning therapy session, which worked by the same rules as the evening one.

The first phase of the treatment plan was largely designed around trigger finding. Applying Tarkin's careful hands to new parts of Vader's body, one square inch at a time, and seeing what colors came up. M4 was literally charting the colors in an image file in her head. Large or intense problem areas could be the subject of further work immediately, practicing with them even more gingerly, again and again, until Vader had a better handle on his reactions. But in the first phase they weren't going to fully extinguish every trigger. Merely get a general sense of what they were working with.

Morning therapy was more difficult than evening therapy, even though the protocol was the same. Resentment and pain that were brought up in the evening could linger into the morning as well. And by the time Vader and Tarkin woke up, they were both rested enough to be interested in sex again, which meant one more thing to guard against as they interacted with each other's bodies. Sexual things might be allowed during therapy later - that was one of their long-term goals - but not yet, and probably not for a long time.

After morning therapy, Vader had a good deal of tension to work off, and what they did with it depended on its nature. Sometimes it was only simple rage and lust. On those mornings, Vader dragged Tarkin to whatever room he chose and Force-fucked him savagely. Vader's animal side came out, growling and raking over Tarkin's flesh with whatever burning or stinging or piercing Force-torture he chose, throwing him over whatever surface was available, penetrating him so vigorously it hurt. Tarkin was allowed on these mornings to give in, or to struggle and curse him, or to play cruel verbal games that provoked Vader yet further; it was cathartic for both of them, no longer being constrained by all of the therapy's rules, no longer worrying that one misstep would spell disaster.

Other times, Vader's problem was subtler. As it had been, on Scarif, the morning after that first unmasking. Not mere aggression but a frustration with his body, an over-awareness of it, an inability to settle into it properly. On those mornings, they dealt with it as they'd done on Scarif: by deviating from their usual Force sex and letting Vader create pleasure with his own suited body. Tarkin often took Vader up to his guest room for that, so they could explore more carefully and comfortably, sprawled in the black bedsheets. Vader was a quick learner and good with his hands, and he learned all sorts of nice things to do to Tarkin with them. Sometimes he made a show of dominance, binding Tarkin in place or deliberately hurting him as a supplement to the sex. Sometimes he didn't.

One morning, Vader began to complain with particular bitterness that he only had his hands to work with. This wasn't quite true: he'd experimented already with his other limbs, holding Tarkin down with a knee or foot, pressing his weight against him, and so on. But for the sex act itself, they hadn't really come up with anything but Vader's hands, either gloved and lubricated and doing their work directly, or moving some interesting toy back and forth. Vader was no longer pleased with that. Most men, he said, would not be satisfied with only handjobs forever. Most men considered that only a preliminary. Was there something wrong with Tarkin, to be satisfied with so little?

"You have the entire Force, Vader. It's fine," said Tarkin. This did not appear to console him. They argued about it fruitlessly for a while, and Tarkin only barely managed to steer the encounter back in a satisfying direction. Vader didn't bring up the same complaints again, but Tarkin had a feeling they'd recur.

The next visit, Tarkin came prepared. He brought a small gift box, and once he'd settled into his guest room, he brought it downstairs. It was an elegantly constructed strap-on toy, the kind that women used for pegging, made in a deep black that matched Vader's armor. It was attached to a harness large enough to fit over Vader's suited hips.

Vader telekinetically fished the thing out of its box by one of its straps, and looked at it, reeling back, as though it was a half-rotten carcass.

"It's a type of toy," Tarkin helpfully explained. Oh, dear, he really hadn't gotten the hang yet of giving Vader gifts. Vader hadn't gotten the hang of receiving them gracefully, either. "It's for-"

"I know what this is for," Vader growled.

Perhaps he'd miscalculated. Perhaps Vader felt emasculated by the suggestion, or had some other reason for disliking this kind of toy. Tarkin reached for the box coolly. "Well, if you don't like it, there's no harm done. I can take it back and find some other use for it."

Vader snatched the toy away from him. "No. You gave it to me as a gift. It is mine now."

He stalked away with it, both his hands curled into fists.

Tarkin watched him go, suppressing a smile of amusement. He suspected they would be using this after all, when Vader got over his bout of initial embarrassment. He would look forward to that.

*

After morning therapy and morning sex, next was lunch, which Tarkin ate alone, while Vader loaded his nutrient packs in his quarters. But after that, there was a span of time that stretched from lunch to suppertime, and that span was delightfully undemanding. Afternoons could be filled with whatever Vader and Tarkin both wanted at the time. Afternoons were when the anguish and lust of their most memorable encounters drained away, and they had time simply to interact as human beings.

Sometimes they worked side by side; they were _busy_ human beings, after all. Sometimes Tarkin couldn't entirely avoid bringing work with him. He would poke at his datapad with half his attention while he watched Vader train, or while Vader fiddled with some mechanism in his workshop. But that was only sometimes.

Other times, Tarkin brought games to play, or vids to watch together. Vader wasn't well-versed in either games or vids, due no doubt to his ascetic Jedi upbringing, and Tarkin enjoyed introducing him to his own favorites. Sometimes Vader took him flying, although that usually ended with Tarkin disembarking on shaky legs and vowing never to get into a flyer with such a madman again. And sometimes if they were tired they sat around, in the comfortable seats of the entrance hall or up on the top floor with its panoramic view, and just talked.

They were beginning to settle into something. Not something comfortable - Tarkin doubted it would ever be that. But something familiar, reliable, built into the routine of both strange lives. And _that_ was a victory as real as the rest.

*

Vader liked what was happening, too. The therapy sessions were difficult, but he'd already known he would endure any difficulty to get what he wanted.

He'd half-believed it wouldn't actually happen. Palpatine would disallow it, surely. Or he'd pretend it was allowed but keep delaying with more long missions. But Palpatine hadn't done either of those things. Instead he'd given Vader a long-distance call, immediately after the temple mission, as soon as Tarkin had gone home.

"What is thy bidding, my master?" Vader had asked, as formally as he could. He was still in his tank; he wasn't medically cleared to leave it yet. For times like this, they had mechanisms. Hidden circuits in the tank's edges holoprojected Palpatine's face before him, close enough that he could see it with reasonable clarity. Similar circuits transmitted to Coruscant an image of Vader from the chest up, armless, naked and bound. Vader couldn't kneel to his master while floating in the tank, but Palpatine would settle for other humiliations.

"I haven't heard from you in some time, my friend," Palpatine said. "I received a full report from Grand Moff Tarkin several days ago. I found it... illuminating. I received Em-four's report on your injuries as well. But nothing from you. Now that your lover is not here to detain you, I thought I'd check in."

These weren't serious complaints. Palpatine rarely demanded written reports from Vader. Vader was terrible at them anyway, and Vader wasn't usually expected to initiate their debriefing calls.

"It is my health that has detained me, master," said Vader. "Surely Em-four's report made that clear. I have been awake only a few hours a day."

"And there have been other matters on which you wished to spend those hours. I understand. That is why I waited until such time as I had your undivided attention. Perhaps your mind will be clearer now." Palpatine wrinkled his wizened nose, considering what it meant for Vader to be awake only a few hours a day while Tarkin was around. "He's seen you in there, I take it? Or did you put your suit on for those few hours, just for him?"

"I was not well enough for my suit, master."

Palpatine looked genuinely intrigued. "And he found you attractive like this?"

Vader did not want to discuss this, but there was no help for it. "Yes, my master."

Inviting Tarkin in to see him had felt like so many things at once. Vader understood the things a naked body could be: enticement, splendor, vulnerability, a canvas on which one's chosen partners could work as they willed. But Vader had none of those things to offer. Not even the vulnerability, really, since he was sealed inside an impervious tank. He had nothing to unveil of himself but pain.

He knew, deep down, that Tarkin would want to see him. Perverse in his particular way, or blinded by love, or whatever it was, Tarkin liked seeing Vader's ugliness. That would continue, probably. He'd wanted Tarkin's eyes on his body ever since Scarif: in that first blush of passion he'd wanted to give his whole self over, to be seen and touched and used however Tarkin willed, and this was the last scrap remaining of that plan that still felt possible. But maybe it would be too much. Maybe Tarkin would turn away in disgust. Maybe Tarkin would never look at him the same way again.

Yet there had been power in it, too. A rush he'd felt as he sent Vaneé up with his summons. He'd felt it again as Tarkin entered the room, as he'd ordered Tarkin closer. It felt _good_ to do this. To choose to be seen, not out of medical necessity or at Palpatine's whim, but because Vader wanted his lover's gaze, and Vader would have what he wanted.

And then Tarkin had looked at him.

It had been like the first unmasking, but even more. All the strangeness of it, all the tender fascination, multiplied tenfold. It was not comfortable, being looked at this way, but it pleased him in a way that had nothing to do with comfort. It was both a relief and a challenge, meeting a gaze like Tarkin's, accepting that the affection in it was real. If Vader tried, he could lose himself in a gaze like that. Forget what he truly was for a while, and just be the thing his lover craved.

He couldn't explain any of that in words his master would understand. He hoped Palpatine didn't make him try.

"Well," said Palpatine, wrinkling his nose, "there is no accounting for taste. Some people like to fuck corpses, I suppose." He looked at Vader sidelong, then changed the subject. "For your report, then. I found Tarkin's descriptions of the temple adequate, but he did omit certain parts. He has no way of knowing, for instance, what you encountered when you were separated. Walk me through that part."

Vader obediently described his experiences with the temple, from the point at which he and Tarkin were separated to the point when they found each other again. He told Palpatine about his initial bout of rage, and how the temple had snapped him out of it by reminding him it held Tarkin's life in its hands; how it had asked him questions about their makeshift master-apprentice pairing; how he had found Hondo in the temple's inner rooms and extracted Neeva's story from his head. He faithfully recounted everything he knew about Crimson Dawn and Neeva. He didn't mention losing or regaining his own memory, and he didn't describe the form the temple took when it spoke to him. If Palpatine asked about those things, he would not lie, but he was glad that Palpatine did not ask.

"Tell me how the weapon fired," Palpatine said at last. "Tarkin's report was vague on that point; he claimed not to understand its finer points."

"When we had finished aiming and calibrating," Vader said, "Tarkin climbed atop the dais to fire. I could not see or hear precisely what he encountered. It was shielded from cursory view, and I was already ill. But I saw the room light up and gather its power. I saw that it intended to drain his life force to power itself, and I stepped in to prevent it from doing so. I was only partially successful, and the resulting injuries are plain from the reports."

"Mm," said Palpatine noncommittally. He was considering Vader with his eyes narrowed, peering into him as if deciphering writing in an unclear hand. "Why did you decide to do that, to save him?"

This was a potentially dangerous question than the others, but Vader had known he'd ask. He was prepared.

"You know I am attached to him," Vader said. "I cannot hide that from you. And it is said we are to sacrifice our other joys to the Dark Side, when the Dark Side demands. But that temple did not have a valid demand. Its very basis of operation violates the Rule of Two. I do not know if it was an orthodox Sith temple even when built; it may have belonged to a splinter sect. But it is certainly not a Sith temple now. It did not deserve so great a sacrifice from me."

Palpatine let out a small _huh,_ and his wrinkled face twisted into a grin. Palpatine had once looked pleasant and grandfatherly, but he and Vader had both become hideous on the same day. Vader was secretly glad for that.

"It is endearing, my friend," said Palpatine, "the way you cling to your orthodoxies. A master requires a more flexible mind. It may be that, one day, the Rule of Two is no longer necessary. But in the meantime, you are not wrong. That temple's particular heresies make it useless to us, and useless to the Empire as well. Tarkin has requested that we have it destroyed."

Vader sagged slightly with relief. If the temple was destroyed, he wouldn't have to go back in there. "I would second that request, my master."

"Did you tell him what the girl said about it?" Palpatine inquired. "That she believed it could destroy us?"

"No, my master. He did not ask."

"Well." There was a small tapping sound: Palpatine, just outside the hologram's range, drumming his fingers on the arm of his throne. "I'm going to approve his request. And I'm going to wait until you can leave that tank before I assign any further duties. I do care about your wellbeing, in my way. When you're so injured you can't use the Force, you're of no use to me. Any manifestation of the Dark Side that puts my apprentice in that state is my enemy."

"Thank you, my master." That sort of care meant little enough. Mostly it meant he had to try harder, get on his feet faster, before Palpatine concluded he was useless for good.

"Speaking of your wellbeing," Palpatine continued, "I obtained those plans for exposure therapy that your medical droid has been working on. Ambitious, I thought. If only you set your sights as consistently high in your spiritual work."

Vader wanted to draw back, but his bonds wouldn't easily allow it. He'd expected this to happen eventually. M4 didn't _like_ Palpatine, but she knew he had the final say in Vader's medical decisions. If the Emperor asked her what she was working on, her programming wouldn't allow her to lie.

"Will you allow it, my master?" he asked.

"I have meditated on that." Palpatine looked into space, his voice softening. "I know the sort of heart you have, my friend. You have your urges, which require an outlet. You're hardly the first. I have my misgivings about this plan, but it may prove helpful for you in the end, a way to motivate you to further explore your inner dark. I'll allow it for the moment. I'll try to arrange your work schedule so as not to interfere, though emergencies may of course arise."

"Thank you, my master," said Vader, taken aback. That last concession was more than he'd dared to hope for. Palpatine was rarely so generous; there might be a catch.

But the tricky thing about Palpatine and catches was that sometimes, every once in a while, there wasn't one. Sometimes Palpatine sensed that some cruelty of his had nearly broken Vader for good. At such times he pulled back, softened, even gave a few concessions out for free, until some recovery took place. Pretended he'd been kind and thoughtful all along, though Vader wasn't fooled.

"It has been difficult for me, learning to share you," said Palpatine. "But you must not think of Grand Moff Tarkin and myself as enemies, simply because we've had to compete for your attention. I take a longer view than that. Tarkin and I have been friends a long time; I daresay I taught him most of what he knows. I trust him. I do want you both to be happy. I only hope he can say the same in return."

"He will not interfere with us," Vader promised. He'd made Tarkin swear to that, and he'd felt the willing resignation in Tarkin's mind. "You said it yourself when I first grew attached to him. He is no threat."

"Let us hope so," said Palpatine, and he grinned so wide that even Vader's blurred vision could see his teeth.

*

On some later visit, Vader found himself sitting with Tarkin on the fortress's eighth floor, looking out at the lava. It had been one of their lazier afternoons thus far. A question had been nagging at Vader ever since the first time Tarkin saw him in the tank, and after several months of their strange version of therapy, he was beginning to feel ready to ask.

"I have been wondering something," he said.

"Yes?" said Tarkin, lounging comfortably in the chair beside him.

"You have looked at me several times now without my suit."

"Yes."

"When you first saw my face on Scarif, you enjoyed it. Not because you believed it was attractive, but because you like me vulnerable."

Tarkin frowned slightly. "I wouldn't put it in quite those terms. I like other things about it, too. I like seeing the emotions on your face. I like seeing your skin and knowing I could touch it if I chose. I like knowing that you've trusted me enough to let me in."

"And when you see the rest of my body, you enjoy it in the same way."

"Yes, for the most part."

"But there is something else," Vader pressed. "I feel that in your mind. There is something about my body that you do find attractive. Not merely because it means I've trusted you, but for its own sake. I do not understand it."

Tarkin looked up at him. "Is that strange?"

"I do not understand," Vader repeated. He didn't even know how to explain. Possibly Tarkin had some bizarre medical fetish that he hadn't yet disclosed.

Tarkin leaned back slightly in his chair, a small smile crossing his face. "Vader, has it ever occurred to you that your combat training has the side effect of building muscle?"

"I am aware of how muscles work," said Vader flatly, and then his brain caught up with him and he realized why this was relevant. He looked at Tarkin with a confused blankness. "What?"

Tarkin, bastard that he was,_ grinned._ He leaned in, as if divulging some delicious secret. "I'm saying that despite your health problems, you are paradoxically at the very peak of physical fitness. It's not strange at all to enjoy the way that looks on you. You're a very enticing shape, all told. Sturdy shoulders, well-muscled hips, a good broad chest. You could crush me between those thighs of yours, and I think I'd enjoy it."

Vader could not explain why this set of statements panicked him. He had not expected it to. Tarkin clearly intended them to be enjoyable, but they only made him feel more monstrous. There were so many other horrible things mixed in with the parts Tarkin said he liked. He did not want to picture the visual details of his own ravaged body, not even if Tarkin liked it, not at _all._

"Tatooine," he blurted.

Tarkin instantly stopped. He didn't feel disappointed as Vader had expected, but oddly pleased. They'd picked that safeword ages ago, but neither of them had actually used it before. Tarkin, he realized, had not truly believed Vader _could._

"Do you need anything?" Tarkin asked, after letting a couple of breaths go by. "Or just a change of topic?"

"I am fine." Vader possessively Force-pulled Tarkin a little closer against him, leaning him slightly backwards against his side. "I am capable of boundaries."

Tarkin relaxed into his grasp, letting his graying head rest on Vader's shoulder. "Liar."

They never talked about it again.

*

The first time Vader called _red_ was a little while after that. They'd carefully explored their way down to his chest and his ribs, and they'd gotten to the part where Tarkin needed to touch him in that spot that had caused all the trouble on Hethea 1. It was easy to remember where that was: it was the site of a fresh scar, small and darkened, where some part of his frostbite had failed to fully heal.

He and Tarkin were both tenser than usual that day. Trauma like Vader's was layered, M4 explained, and remembering what happened last time Tarkin put his hand here would probably add a whole new layer. But there were reasons for guarded optimism, too. Nobody was cold this time. And their current protocols would prevent Tarkin from accidentally worsening the situation as he'd done in the escape pod. It would only be the feel, very briefly, of a hand. Maybe Vader could handle that.

"You're cleared for contact, Lord Vader," said M4's voice above him.

M4 could be a devious little thing. She'd been the one to insist on this part of the protocol, where Vader decided what he wanted to do before the contact itself. Vader had assumed that this was mostly for show, but it did something to him that Tarkin had constantly tried and failed to. It forced Vader to take a moment and actually think about what he wanted. He could decide that he didn't want anything, that they should just get on with it, but that was also a choice. He'd still have to say it out loud.

At times like this, he hated that he'd agreed.

He pulled Tarkin's hand forcibly out to hover over him, only an inch above the skin. He didn't want to draw this out. He didn't want _anyone_ to feel they had a choice.

"Now," he said.

Tarkin obediently pressed down.

A roil of emotions passed through Vader as he felt the touch. Too many. He couldn't distinguish which ones were the warning signs of an actual flashback, and which were only his fear of a flashback occurring. He felt the same unease that he had in the escape pod, though, the premonition something was terribly wrong. He couldn't stop thinking about the flashback he _might_ have, the one he'd had before, Palpatine standing over him and cackling as his lungs seized in the frozen steam. Tarkin's terrified face as he'd leapt backwards, as the escape pod came apart around him. That was what would happen if Vader couldn't get a handle on his fear. He tried to suppress it and he couldn't, he _couldn't. _Tarkin would be hurt again, and it would be his fault.

"Color, Lord Vader?" said M4's voice somewhere very distant above him.

"Red," he gasped.

M4 neither hesitated nor flinched. "Okay, Lord Vader. One tranquilizer coming right up." She'd pressed the injector into his neck and activated it before she even finished speaking.

Tarkin quickly and silently withdrew. That was part of the protocol, too. They'd all agreed that the best thing he could do was to get out of the way and let M4 handle it. Vader could still feel the alarm in Tarkin's mind, though. Less than the panic he'd had in the escape pod. Tarkin, at least, understood the situation this time.

Vader could feel Tarkin's mind. He understood who Tarkin was, and why he was here, and why he was reacting as he did. And that meant he was here, in the present, after all. He wasn't actually going to lose control. Not in these next few seconds, at least.

"Tarkin," he whispered, and he felt some complex emotion rise in Tarkin's mind in response, something that wasn't quite fear. "It is - all right." And then everything dissolved.

*

He woke up later, feeling literally like death warmed over, and they skipped further therapy in favor of making him comfortable. He got to stay in his tank very late with extra painkillers. When his suit was back on, Tarkin let him pick whatever vid he wanted to watch, and subsequently suffered through the broadcast of an entire podracing championship, while Vader, still addled by medicine, rambled about how all the new rules instated in the last two decades had destroyed the sport.

There was no help for it, though: eventually they were going to have to go back in there and do that all again. They could start slower, come at it from the side, play with only its edges at first. They'd be emboldened by the knowledge that Vader had not, in fact, hurt anyone. That he had recognized Tarkin, stayed coherent that way, right to the end. But they were going to have to keep raising those feelings, working on handling it, until they got it all the way right.

Again and again. That was the protocol.

*

Vader liked his therapy best when Tarkin was involved, but Tarkin wasn't around enough to be involved all the time. On missions, Vader couldn't do therapy at all. But when he was home and Tarkin wasn't, he worked with M4 just the two of them.

M4 couldn't do all the things Tarkin could. Her mechanical hands were stiff and practical and came with none of the visceral affectionate feelings of Tarkin's. They provided only a thin shadow of the stimuli Vader really needed to work with. But sometimes a thin shadow was useful. If Tarkin touching Vader in a certain place was too much to handle, M4's version would be easier. She'd chatter away while she prodded at him, and he'd practice taking it, focusing on processing and controlling what he felt, over and over, until it came naturally. And then, when Tarkin did come back, he'd be that much more prepared.

Just because M4's sessions were easier to bear, though, didn't mean they didn't raise unpleasant feelings. And Vader didn't have Tarkin to work off his tensions with afterwards. Sometimes, after therapy with M4, he went to his training room and fought shadows until he could barely move. Sometimes he discreetly arranged for another of his play partners to be there. Sometimes he tried to do neither of these, and then small objects would start breaking in his vicinity and M4 would quietly readjust the treatment parameters. None of it was ideal, but he kept going.

*

Tarkin understood that Vader and M4 worked together without him, but he also understood that the sessions that involved him were a higher risk. M4 had briefed him about that very thoroughly. Over months of work, there were two or three more incidents like that first one, times when Vader called red and had to be knocked out. Only one of these involved actual violence. But one was enough.

It was an early exploration with the back of Vader's body. This was more challenging to get to than the front: Vader wasn't supposed to move much without his suit, certainly not to the point of rolling over. M4 had fully undressed him, a procedure Tarkin had grown used to by this point, and turned him onto his stomach with an awkward mechanism that carefully cradled his shoulders and head. Vader's back was as scarred as his front, but less riddled with machine parts. It was easy from this angle to appreciate his broad shoulders and the shape of his hips.

There was no buildup. All Tarkin did was place the flat of his hand on Vader's shoulder, as commanded.

And then he flew across the room.

The wall hit him hard enough to knock his wind out. Pain shot through him, and he crumpled to the floor like so much paper, breathless.

"_Lord_ Vader-" M4 exclaimed, and he heard the hiss of the injector, but the rest of her scolding was drowned out by the sound of Tarkin's own body fighting for air.

Tarkin did not _think_ he was being Force choked, but he could not breathe. It took a moment to sort out the difference between a Force choke and a diaphragm spasm. When it eased, and he was able to focus on something else besides his lungs again, he drew himself up to sit straight. His muscles twinged warningly, and he winced. He did not move from the edge of the room where he'd landed. All his instincts told him it was best to be still and quiet and as unlike a potential threat as he possibly could be.

M4 didn't pay him a lick of attention until she'd finished with Vader. Only then did she trundle across the room to look him up and down. "Okay, Governor Tarkin. He's asleep now. Can you get up?"

He did so without too much difficulty, steadying himself against the black wall. "That went less well than expected."

"Yeah, let me check you over." She took out her diagnostic scanner and passed it carefully across him. "Well, your ribs are bruised, but nothing's broken. You'll need some ice and some rest and some other stuff, I'll get together some painkillers for you and a list of recommendations when we're done in here. But you're not in any danger. From the actual injury, at least."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, rubbing his forehead.

M4 gave an electronic sigh, and her voice lowered. "Look, I'm not going to mince words with you, Governor Tarkin. Lord Vader kinda pulled that punch; he can go a lot harder. But if you'd hit your head on something instead of landing square on your back, you'd still be dead now. Think that over, okay?"

"But I didn't-" Tarkin started. He felt irrationally that she was scolding him, blaming him for taking unnecessary risks, when he had in fact done precisely as the protocol instructed.

"Yeah, I know you didn't _do_ anything. That's the point. You did everything right. But we are inherently doing things that could lead Lord Vader to mistake you for someone who did something wrong. And the treatment plan says we're gonna have to keep doing it a lot more. Want to back out?"

Tarkin took what he intended to be a long breath, although pain cut it short. He focused on the sight of Vader, naked and limbless, out cold face down on his padded table.

"No," he said.

*

She asked him the same question again, the next day, before letting him in to see Vader even a little bit. He hadn't slept well; he'd woken himself up coughing several times, and coughing at the moment was quite painful. His answer was still the same.

Later, he learned that Vader's first words that morning - waking in the full misery of a tranquilizer hangover - had been _Where is Tarkin?_ He had remembered that he'd lost control, but not much else. M4 and Vaneé had both assured him that Tarkin was still here in the fortress and doing fine, nothing worse than a few bruised ribs; and surely Vader could feel Tarkin's presence with his Force senses. But he had still refused all other comfort, even medicine for the pain, until he saw Tarkin again with his own eyes.

*

"What were you remembering?" he asked, the next day, once they'd sorted through the initial awkward round of apologies.

"Mustafar," Vader said blackly. He did not elaborate.

*

Another day, as Tarkin picked himself up off the floor after a bout of morning Force sex and started putting himself back together for lunch, Vader stopped him.

"Wait," he said, and Tarkin stilled, half-dressed. "You will be eating lunch next." An obvious statement, but from the halting awkwardness of his speech, Tarkin could tell he was building up to something vulnerable.

"That was the plan," said Tarkin.

"Does it bother you," Vader asked, "eating alone?"

"Not truly. I have my datapad. But I wouldn't mind company, of course."

"If it bothered you," said Vader even more haltingly, "I would be willing to eat with you. I... could bring my nutrient packs."

Tarkin had been around Vader long enough to know what this sort of communication meant. Separating at mealtimes was their usual routine, and Tarkin hadn't complained, nor had he experienced any negative emotions for Vader to pick up on. If Vader offered like this anyway, out of the blue, then it was something Vader wanted.

"Thank you, Vader," said Tarkin. "That would be lovely."

He finished cleaning himself and dressing, and Vader vanished to his quarters to obtain his supplies. Tarkin was very curious now. Vader had taken his medicine in front of Tarkin often enough that it had become routine, but Tarkin had never seen him load his nutrients.

Lunch, in the dining hall, was already served for one. Tarkin's plate was set with the usual care: today it held the meat of some robust lava-dwelling mammal, cut into elegant medallions, accompanied by a small salad. He sat by it and waited politely until Vader entered, carrying a small box with several different packets inside.

Vader sat down at the table, opposite Tarkin, and paused. Tarkin suspected it wasn't only self-consciousness that held him back. Vader hadn't eaten with anyone in many years; he probably barely remembered how it was supposed to go.

Tarkin picked up his fork, deciding to take the lead. "Shall we?"

"Yes," said Vader. He did not move for his packets.

Tarkin began to eat, watching Vader in something halfway between amusement and concern as Vader awkwardly sat still. Tarkin might intervene if this dragged on a long time, but he'd give it a few more minutes first. Besides, this salad tasted good. He counted idly in his head, wondering if it would be entertaining to use the length of Vader's hesitation against him later.

"Your servants are skilled at their jobs," Tarkin said at the one-minute mark, deciding to have some mercy. "I'm always impressed by the quality of the food here, given how rarely you host visitors who need it. It must be difficult to source provisions on a planet like this one."

"Not as difficult as you believe," said Vader. "There are other humanoids on Mustafar who require food. They have their methods. There are even forests of sorts, special breeds resilient to burning, on certain plains."

Hesitantly, Vader reached into the box he'd brought and drew out a medicine packet. He loaded it in a brief silence. This was a process Tarkin had seen many times: the packet clicking into a port in Vader's torso armor, then whirring slightly as its contents emptied. By now he'd become familiar enough with Vader's unsuited body to picture the valve that was installed in him at that angle, able to draw the medicines directly into Vader's bloodstream. Or at least, Tarkin assumed it was the bloodstream. He'd never asked.

Tarkin took another bite, already a good fraction of the way through his salad. "Are those native tree species, then? Or were they planted deliberately for food?"

"I have never asked," said Vader. Tarkin knew it could be complicated, tracing the provenance of a species across worlds. Sentient beings had traveled the galaxy, bringing their crops and livestock and pests with them, longer than recorded history. Even a species restricted to a single world might not have originally evolved there.

Vader hesitantly picked up the next item, a nutrient pack. Tarkin recognized its shape: a rounded bulb, bulkier than the medicine packs. He knew some of the technical specifications of these items. They were filled with a carefully calibrated blend of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins, in the form of a tasteless and easily digestible paste. They were much more calorically rich than standard rations, on account of the immense energy Vader expended in both training and battle. Vader loaded them three times a day, like normal meals, and the packs were color-coded accordingly as breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Tarkin had ensured Vader was provisioned with these on missions, but he had never actually seen the process carried out.

"You have seen these before," said Vader.

"Yes."

"Their function is similar to that of the medicine packets. But there is more material in them. It takes longer to absorb the contents once the pack is loaded."

"All right," said Tarkin, watching curiously. He knew that, by explaining in this way, Vader was inviting him to attend to the details. So he didn't feel guilty about looking directly at the process.

"The port for nutrients is lower than the port for medicines. It connects directly to my stomach. Here."

He turned his indicator panel carefully aside and flipped open a hidden port just under the solar plexus. Tarkin recognized the valve that went with this one, too. Vader attached the nutrient pack to the port. It only went in partway. When it had latched on to the port and formed a seal, it made a whirring sound, louder than that of the medicines. Tarkin thought he saw the rounded bulb of the pack slowly shrinking.

"Feed yourself," said Vader, gesturing to Tarkin's plate. He realized his fork had gone still in his hand. "This will take some time."

"How does it feel?" Tarkin asked, when he'd had a few more bites. "Do you still get hungry? Do you enjoy it, or is it merely mechanical?"

"I can feel the difference between a full stomach and an empty one. The transfer can be uncomfortable, but alleviating emptiness is pleasant. There is no taste."

Tarkin briefly became distracted by a fantasy of finding some way to let Vader taste something. Droppers of sweet or savory liquids on his tongue, in the midst of their therapy sessions, perhaps. The fantasy petered out, though, as he tried to imagine what M4 would say about it.

He was starting on the meat, slicing the medallions into neat quarters, when Vader's nutrient pack gave a click and stopped whirring. Vader twisted it, the bulb flattened and empty now, and it cleanly detached. He placed it back down into the box for later disposal.

"How are you feeling?" Tarkin asked.

"This is not bad," said Vader. "I have not disgusted you, as I feared."

Tarkin frowned slightly. Even after all this time, Vader still kept finding reasons to fear that Tarkin would find him repulsive. Vader _knew_ better, he saw and felt Tarkin's affection all the time, but it was an issue so deep-seated that his literal sensory experience couldn't get at its root. Tarkin only hoped to wear away at its surface a little.

"Next are the fluids?" he asked.

"Yes."

Tarkin, on impulse, reached for the box. "May I... try?"

Vader turned his helmet, startled. Long enough for Tarkin to worry that perhaps he'd overstepped. But no longer. "As you wish."

Tarkin pulled his chair back, stood, and walked the short distance to Vader's side, his heart in his throat. Vader pulled back and turned slightly, making himself easier to access. He picked up the fluid pack in a gloved hand, but did not fully hand it over. Instead he held it up for Tarkin to examine.

The fluid pack was about the size of a water bottle, but it would never have been mistaken for one. It was rectangular, and its only visible opening was a slender output port of a fairly intricate design. Tarkin remembered the difficulty Vader had, hydrating himself with an ordinary bottle; the reverse, a normal person trying to drink from one of these, would undoubtedly be at least as awkward. It was warm to the touch and pressurized, working a third of Vader's daily fluid needs into its deceptively small space;. The fluid within was slightly cloudy, not pure water, but a solution of essential electrolytes, sugars and salts.

"The port for that one is here," said Vader.

He reached up higher than the other ports, nearly to the edge of his shoulder plate, to a narrow port hidden by his suit's fabrics. He took hold of Tarkin's bare hand in his gloved one and placed the fluid pack inside. Tarkin held his breath as Vader guided his hands, gently and carefully, to work the pack into place. It found its bearings with a click. Then there was a soft noise, like the rush of water through a faraway pipe, as it began to empty into Vader's system.

Tarkin carefully withdrew. His hand and Vader's lingered against each other a moment more.

"How was that?" he asked.

"That was not bad."

He returned to his seat, watching the packet's fluid level gradually lower. He had forgotten his own food again. This was remedied a moment later, when one of the bite-slized slices of his meat bobbed up incongruously in front of his face.

Tarkin drew back, mortified. "I'm capable of feeding myself, Vader."

Vader's voice was dry. "And I am capable of loading my own fluids."

Tarkin took the point, suppressed his dignity, and opened his mouth. The morsel of food settled itself on Tarkin's tongue and he immediately bit down. It was good meat, juicy and well-seasoned, with the smoky flavor so many Mustafarian dishes possessed. He enjoyed it.

Once he'd swallowed, he found himself chuckling. At the sheer sweet absurdity of the two of them, up in Vader's ridiculous tower, behaving like this. He hoped this was a thing he could keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to adalric, who wanted to know how last chapter's tank scene felt from Vader's point of view; to SpookySpaghetties, who had useful thoughts a while back about Vader and body dysphoria; and to the person who privately complained that there isn't enough fic involving Vader and strap-ons. Leaving that one nameless in case getting a shout-out for a sex thing is embarrassing. You know who you are.
> 
> There is going to be a lot of fanservice in these last few chapters, sometimes for individual fans. I'm okay with that.
> 
> Happy new year!


	17. Epilogue, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader gets to an important milestone in his therapy, ominous long-distance calls are made, it's honestly very hard to get privacy in a lava fortress, and Tarkin's gift is finally put to good use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i aten't dead! \o/ although this is another weird long-ass chapter that took a while.
> 
> also i read on tumblr about blanket permission statements so now i [have one here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/profile)
> 
> speaking of which, someone drew (VERY NSFW TANK VADER) fanart based on chapter 15 so [here you go](https://www.deviantart.com/helmet77/art/second-hand-masturbation-by-force-proxy-IS-sex-825974704) if you want that. :D
> 
> \--
> 
> ETA: i forgot when i first posted, but this chapter also needs a content note for some brief mentions of self-injury.

As the trigger-finding therapy sessions inched their way down Vader's body, they saved his cock for last. This was on grounds that it would be a particularly vulnerable and difficult place, and they might as well approach it with all the practice they could get.

The downside of this approach was that it gave Vader a lot of time to worry.

Vader's body didn't _work._ It couldn't breathe on its own, regulate its heartbeat or temperature, eat solid food, and the list went on and on. Not being able to hold an erection was a minor problem compared to the rest. Tarkin knew about it already and professed not to care. But Vader cared. The more they explored his body - bare in the therapy sessions, or suited but active in Tarkin's bed - the more he wanted what he couldn't have.

His impotence wasn't the direct result of an injury. There was structural damage and scarring, but not _that_ much. It was just that Vader was constantly in huge amounts of pain and taking a dozen different medicines, many of which had sexual dysfunction as one of their side effects. With that and the catheter and various other small complaints, there was just too much going on for that part of his body to cope with.

He had asked M4 if there was some way of fixing that, but she wouldn't let him try.  It had taken her years to perfect Vader's current cocktail of medicines, one that kept him alive and reduced his pain as much as it could. The current roster of side effects was less harmful to him than any alternative. Vasodilators and other common treatments were off the table, either because of how they'd interact with his existing drugs or because of what they'd do to other parts of his struggling body. Besides - as she sternly reminded him, when he started to escalate to more ridiculous suggestions - Vader couldn't even handle being naked unsupervised with his lover yet. This wasn't the time.

One evening, after a particularly frustrating argument, Vader waited until she'd taken his suit off and then ordered her out of the room.

M4 tilted her head, looking at him critically. "What's wrong, Lord Vader?"

"Nothing. Just - leave me."

"You're not going to try and hurt yourself or anything, right?" They'd had a few incidents like that a very long time ago, when M4 was still new. It had been ugly. "You know I can still monitor your basic vital signs from outside the room."

"I will be fine. I will not hurt anything. I merely want to be alone. For five minutes. Leave."

She'd shrugged. "Okay. Have fun."

He had to do it this way, rude and embarrassing as it was, because there wasn't another option. In his suit, he couldn't get at himself. In his tank, he had the Royal Guards' eyes on him, and he also inconveniently didn't have hands.

Vader lay naked on his table, encumbered only by his prosthetic limbs and life support. The only clothes he still wore were the gloves that went over his hands and the boots on his feet. Peeling those off would be possible, but it would take a while and wouldn't increase their sensitivity much. Besides, he'd learned that Tarkin enjoyed the way this looked, bared except for a few dramatic accessories. Thinking about the visual details of his body was still too much for Vader, but thinking about the way his clothes looked was just this side of bearable. He would think about that, he decided, if he needed a thought to arouse him. He'd think about Tarkin watching.

Cautiously, he placed his gloved hands flat on his chest.

Since his accident, Vader had almost never touched himself with his own hands. Not even in innocent places like this . It ached the way hands on Vader's body always ached, but it was less intense than being touched by someone else. He was fully in control of his hands, so they didn't trigger him.  He inched his way down his body, between the various devices that protruded from him, down between his legs.

He wrapped his gloved hand around his own cock.

When he'd done this with Tarkin in the _Overseer_'s meditation chamber, through his suit's underlayer, he'd felt something. Not quite what most men would feel, but an intensity. A need. It had hurt, but there'd been some spark underneath the hurt to made him crave more. He hadn't known what to do with that feeling, except to egg Tarkin on, and then to push all that intensity back into Tarkin's body before it broke him.

He didn't feel any of that now. His cock hung limp in his hand, soft and small and useless.

He traced his fingers up and down its short length, searching for any hint of that spark he remembered. The shaft of it was sensitive the way an earlobe or fingertip was sensitive, but that was all. At the tip there was the solid plastic of his catheter, which he ignored.  Vader was used to minutely exploring new partners' bodies, mapping their nerve endings, finding the kinds of stroke that would please them best. But there was nothing much to go on here.

He explored lower, cupping his balls in his hand. He still had those, sort of, in a small scarred misshapen form. They probably even partly worked. Maybe something in there still churned out a few sickly sperm cells every so often, which would swim around uselessly and be reabsorbed.

Just to be thorough, he stroked the tip of a finger further back across his perineum. To his ass, where it bumped up against his waste disposal apparatus. He tried nudging the hole's edges anyway, gently, the way he did with Tarkin to warm him up before putting his fingers inside, but this hurt much more than expected and he drew back.

That was it, then. That was what Vader had to offer down there. He was neither surprised nor pleased.

Yet - there'd been that moment, in the meditation chamber. There'd been _something._

Vader stubbornly wrapped his hand around his cock again. Maybe the problem was his mood. He tried thinking about Tarkin. He imagined it was Tarkin touching him here, looking down at his body with that hungry adoring expression. He imagined - for Force's sake, this was Vader's imagination, it shouldn't be so hard to picture - that Tarkin wasn't disappointed. He pictured the feel of Tarkin's mind, enthralled, scandalously delighted to put his fingers here without any expectations as to the result.

All it did was make him more frustrated.

Tarkin _wouldn't_ mind this, not very much. Tarkin would be happy enough just to press their bodies together and do what was possible. He could rub against Vader or get himself off with his hand while Vader held him close, skin to skin. They could have Force sex while touching each other, or use Vader's hands that way, or a toy. Even _that_ toy, the one with all the straps attached, if he wanted.

Vader didn't want any of those things. Vader wanted his cock to work. He remembered what that felt like. He wanted to be hard and thick and primed for his own pleasure. He wanted the tight heat of Tarkin's body enveloping him.

He might have hurt himself, after all. Might have squeezed himself so tightly that he broke something, if not for the fact that he knew his five minutes were nearly up, and M4 was coming back in soon.

By the time she returned, he was flat on his back, hands at his sides, perfectly still. She didn't ask what he'd needed the five minutes for, which was a mercy. He might have disassembled her for asking.

*

The next morning, Vader contemplated calling the whole thing off.

His next visit with Tarkin, if all went well, was supposed to be the one. He had a brief mission to go on first, but the wait wouldn't be long. It wasn't supposed to be a sex act - there were a lot of other hurdles to clear before _that_ \- but they'd do their usual protocol, and Tarkin's hands would go briefly and carefully between Vader's legs. He'd wanted that, or thought he had. Now he wasn't sure.

What was the end goal? They were never going to be normal lovers. All this suffering and risk to them both, and all it would lead to would be a different kind of frustration. A different kind of intimacy which still wasn't, _still_ could never be, all he really wanted.

When his suit was on and M4 had left, he crossed the room to his comms console and slapped a few buttons.

The holo-image that appeared before him was one of Tarkin's aides. Vader wasn't even sure what time it was on Coruscant right now. The young man - dressed in understated finery as a governor's aide ought to - looked up at Vader nervously, inclining his head in respect. "Lord Vader. May I take a message to Governor Tarkin for you?"

"I wish to speak with him personally," said Vader.

The aide swallowed nervously. "I'm sorry, Lord Vader, he's not available right now. He'll be in trade negotiations until late this afternoon. When he returns, I'll inform him you called, or I can take a message to him if you'd prefer."

Vader did not want to wait. And he did not want to cancel a date this way, through a third party, without even a hint of explanation. He'd wanted to say it to Tarkin's face, holographic or not. That he'd realized this therapy would never reach the goal he truly wanted, and therefore, the continued risk to Tarkin was pointless.

He could imagine how Tarkin would reply, of course. He'd raise his eyebrows skeptically. He'd point out that, although it was of course up to Vader, they'd always had more than one goal. He'd be sympathetic, maybe, trying to reassure him. Or maybe he'd say something cutting and superior - what, was Vader backing out now? Over such a little technicality? Was he a coward? Where was that Sith fighting spirit, when Tarkin wanted it?

Vader wanted that, he realized. He wanted to tell Tarkin he was calling the whole thing off. And then he wanted Tarkin, who always won their arguments, to talk him down.

"I have changed my mind," he said to the comms panel. "There is no message. Return to your duties and do not speak a word of this."

*

Tarkin called back, of course, but by that time Vader had left for his latest mission and it became another game of comms tag. By the time Tarkin managed to get through, Vader was on his way home already. He had murdered a biggish group of Rebels who were hiding out in an asteroid field, and he felt tired now, but pleased with himself.

Tarkin's face, in hologram form, looked much the same as ever. Sharp and alert. "There you are, Vader. I was beginning to think I wouldn't see you until I was there in person."

"My mission went well," Vader said, irrelevantly. Now that his initial panic was over, he didn't even know what he wanted to say. "I am fine."

"That's good. One of my aides informed me you'd been acting oddly over the comms, and I'd wondered if you were in any distress."

Vader turned his head. "I ordered him not to speak of that. Deliver him to me and I will punish him."

Tarkin took a sip of something he was holding. Tea, probably; hard to tell over the lousy comm connection. "Please don't murder my political aides. They're hand-picked. I'll take that one off comms duty so you aren't tempted, but everyone who handles my personal communications is on orders from me to report when you've called." His eyes flicked up to Vader's knowingly. "It's about the next phase in our therapy, isn't it?"

Vader clenched a fist offscreen. He already regretted having said anything. But once Tarkin had deduced something, there was no taking it back.

"I had cold feet," he confessed. "It was a momentary lapse. It will not recur."

He recognized the expression that crossed Tarkin's hologram face next, pitying and conflicted. It was the face Tarkin made when he wanted to offer Vader the chance to back out, but knew that would only make things worse.

"I'm looking forward to the visit," Tarkin said carefully after a moment, taking another sip of his possibly-tea. "Are you?"

Vader carefully felt the area around him with the Force. He was in his quarters aboard the _Executor_, which were second only to his actual lava fortress in privacy and comfort. His comms panel here was well-secured. No one else was in the room with him, or in the rooms nearby, to listen in. He still felt hesitant

"I suspect it will be difficult," he said at last, matching Tarkin in the caution of his tone.

"Yes, probably. What would you like to do about that?"

"Give me a reason," he said. "To want it. When it will only remind me how broken I am."

Tarkin smiled slightly. "Do you remember how many times I've looked at you by now? Injuries and all. You like how that feels, don't you?"

Vader fractionally relaxed. He'd always liked the way Tarkin looked at him, even when he didn't understand it, even when he didn't want to think too hard about just what Tarkin was seeing. "Yes."

"Then there's no reason to think this will go any differently, is there?"

They talked longer. Tarkin was uncharacteristically patient. Eventually another aide called him away, saying his dinner plans couldn't be delayed any longer. But by that time, beneath his mask, Vader was smiling.

*

"You're cleared for contact," said M4, standing at a slightly further remove than normal.

By this time, "contact" meant something more complicated than a single kiss. M4 still chose the areas of the body they were working on, but there was more than one per session now: a relatively easy one or two, areas that had already been worked down to yellow or green from a worse color and now just needed maintenance to stay that way; followed by a new or more challenging one to finish.

Vader looked up at the blurred outline of Tarkin standing by his table. He could feel Tarkin's mind, nervous and alert and hopeful, devoted in his usual self-possessed way. He could do this, he thought, if Tarkin kept on looking at him that way.

M4 wanted Vader to play dominant during therapy. Normally that soothed him. But he felt a strange desire not to, this time. Today he felt as if his entire skin had been peeled back and discarded, not just the suit. Vader wanted to be able to tell the truth, to act as helpless as his heart told him he was.

"Tarkin," he said, reaching up and catching Tarkin's hand in his.

"Yes, Lord Vader," said Tarkin, squeezing back.

He wanted to say, _I am afraid._ He wanted to beg. But his pride wouldn't let him.

He tugged Tarkin's hand a little closer to him, instead. "Tell me you are mine."

"Yes, Lord Vader. I'm yours."

He could hear the smile in Tarkin's voice. Tarkin liked him vulnerable. That had never gone away, not after any of Tarkin's apologies or excuses for it, not even after M4 built her protocols explicitly to make Tarkin the most submissive person in the room. Tarkin would follow the rules; but he could see the fear and need in Vader's face, and that was as enticing to him as ever.

"Tell me you love me," said Vader. That word still felt like a dangerous indulgence; they'd said it to each other a few times now, but not many. It felt like a word Sith Lords ought not to say aloud too often.

Tarkin gently pulled Vader's gloved hand back up, brought it to his lips. "I do love you, Lord Vader."

"Begin," said Vader.

Tarkin reached down and placed his palm flat on Vader's lower belly, in an area relatively free from medical intrusions. This was an easy place, without any notable traumas attached. His hand barely even hurt; it mostly felt warm. Steady.

"Color, Lord Vader?"

"Green."

"Okay." M4 tapped a chrono she'd placed at the side of the table, and it made a cheerful beeping noise. "Three minutes."

The protocol for _green_ was that they kept going, for a length of time M4 chose. Not moving on to other body parts, but playing with the assigned one a while longer. Vader was to speak up promptly if his color changed, which had occurred once or twice; but mostly, the protocol for _green_ was a reward.

Tarkin ran his fingers back and forth in little patterns. He even bent down to kiss the scarred skin. Tarkin could behave however he liked after Vader called _green, _so long as it didn't contradict orders; sometimes he was teasing or suggestive or even a little cruel. But today he was keeping himself docile. Trying to rein that rush of power in, or to hide it, perhaps, from M4's eyes.

Vader wanted him already. Powerful or not.

The chrono beeped again after three minutes. "Time's up," said M4 cheerfully, and Tarkin withdrew. "You're cleared for the next one."

"Do it," Vader said immediately. He did not want to lose momentum.

The next part of the plan was Vader's inner thighs. This was a part of the body they'd begun their experiments with only recently. It was trickier than his belly, because the skin was more heavily burned; there was significant nerve damage. Vader loved it, though. He had already parted his legs just enough, and Tarkin gently slipped a hand in, resting his fingertips just above the divot where the prosthetic leg connected to the flesh.

"Green," said Vader immediately. His skin ached as it always did, but pain wasn't a reason to call _yellow _unless it surprised or distressed him. There was the pain and the other feeling with it, the good feeling, the one that made him want Tarkin's hands on him more and more forever.

"Okay. Four minutes."

That was a little longer than typical. M4 was drawing it out on purpose, letting them take their time. Scheduling this part of the therapy for the morning had been a gamble: it meant Vader would be back in his suit soon afterwards and able to act out his feelings however he wanted. But it also meant there would be more sexual feelings to process, at a time when being overwhelmed by feelings could mean genuine danger. Giving them a long warm-up, involving other very sensitive places, meant M4 was not only aware of this but leaning into it. Making it as intimate for the two of them as she safely could, because that felt more human than the alternative.

Tarkin stroked lightly up and down the inside of each thigh in turn, varying it, from strokes of his fingertips to brushes of his palm, to his knuckles and the backs of his nails, and back again, careful not to make contact with anything but the legs themselves. Vader could feel that he wanted to bend down again, to kiss gently at the skin here too, but there wasn't quite a good angle for it on the table. Some time in the future, maybe, when they had established a safer baseline and had more room to play, Vader could arrange himself differently. If he wasn't strapped down then he could move to the table's edge, spread his legs further and let Tarkin kneel between them. That was a good mental image. Vader liked it very much.

"You know how I love this, Lord Vader, don't you?" Tarkin murmured as he worked. He was allowed to extemporize his own comments when the color was green. "You can feel how I do. Just being allowed to reach in and touch you. Just this."

"I feel it," said Vader. His breath mask from the tank was on, but his mouth felt unaccountably dry.

The chrono beeped, ending their four minutes too soon.

"And you're cleared for the next one," M4 said, after a quick glance at Vader's indicator panel.

"Now," said Vader, before he could lose his nerve.

He could feel Tarkin holding his breath as he moved. Tarkin brought his hand a few inches further up and took a gentle hold of Vader's cock. It was the same grip Vader had seen Tarkin use on himself, sometimes, at the very beginning of the act. Light and teasing, except that there was no teasing feeling in Tarkin's mind now. He was fully focused, deadly serious.

It hurt, but - it was there. That spark. So faintly Vader could barely discern it, under the strangeness of being held by someone else's hand, but it _was_ there. Maybe this would be like every other sexual thing. Maybe Vader's body couldn't truly crave stimulation, this way, unless someone else was there to crave him back.

He wanted more. There were a pile of other emotions too, relief and terror and grief and frustration, more than even his Sith self could untangle at once. Vader did not know what to do with this, but he knew he wanted more of it. He did not want Tarkin to let go.

"Color, Lord Vader?" said M4, and he realized he'd forgotten she was there.

"Yellow," he gasped into his breath mask. "Do not stop."

"Okay, Lord Vader. I'm giving you sixty seconds."  That was on the short side, but for a new yellow area it wasn't out of the ordinary.

Tarkin worked his fingers back and forth in the lightest possible strokes. Vader could feel the way he focused carefully on his task, dividing his gaze between Vader's face and his cock. He could feel that Tarkin wanted to speak, to ask him how it felt and what he wanted. But when the color was yellow, Tarkin couldn't speak unless spoken to. Vader should have planned something to say; he should have remembered how Tarkin needed words at a time like this. Too late now, though. He could no longer formulate a coherent verbal thought.

He wanted to keen like a trapped animal. He wanted to grind his hips upwards into Tarkin's hand. But he had to lie still, like a dead thing, while the touch of Tarkin's fingers seared him back to life.

Vader wanted more of this, more and more and more. But he also felt, with a strange clarity, its limits. The pain and pleasure were intense, but he knew, bone-deep, that they were already the peak of what his body could do. It wouldn't matter if Tarkin used a different technique, squeezed him harder, took him in his mouth or whatever else: those things might change the sensation, might make it hurt more or just feel different, but that was all they'd do. The spark in him was only a single spark. It wouldn't make him hard. It wouldn't make him come, no matter how long they spent trying. All he could ever do was feel the sensation until it stopped.

This was it. This was all there was.

He wanted to shatter every medical instrument in the room.

There was another beep, too soon. "Okay, time's up," said M4, and Tarkin immediately withdrew his hand. "Good work, everybody. Hang in there, Lord Vader; I'll get your suit on you as quickly as I can, and then you can go do whatever."

She was already working at it as briskly as she safely could; fishing the suit's underlayers out of their compartment under the table and beginning to work them around his limbs.

"Can I ask how that felt?" said Tarkin. Now that the session was over, he was permitted to speak again. "Are you all right?"

"You may not ask," said Vader. He was full of so many feelings, he didn't even know how to _begin_ to describe them. He wanted more. He wanted Tarkin writhing helplessly under him, _giving_ him more. He could scarcely tolerate having to wait for that until he was dressed. "You may not speak yet."

He could feel Tarkin silently raising his eyebrows, drawing the appropriate inference. It was going to be one of _those_ mornings.

"Go to my workshop," Vader instructed. "Find a clear patch of floor by an empty table. Strip there and kneel, and await me."

"Yes, Lord Vader," said Tarkin, in his most clipped and military voice.

"I'm right _here,_ you know," M4 complained. She had remarkable patience for Vader and Tarkin doing intimate things during therapy - she seemed to understand it, when there was a medical purpose - but she didn't like at all when they entered a scene in front of her afterwards. This was not the first time she'd groused at the two of them to wait until they'd gotten a room. Just this once, Vader ignored her.

*

Getting dressed in his armor took too long and only made him more impatient. When at last Vader swept into the workshop, Tarkin was there as instructed, facing away from the door, his wiry frame laid bare as he knelt quietly. He'd found a spot next to the only empty table in the room, the others being variously occupied with half-disassembled engines or droid parts, or with smaller projects strewn around.

Tarkin liked when Vader hurt him, but he'd never enjoyed obeying orders for their own sake. Vader was therefore not surprised that he'd taken some initiative to make the wait more comfortable. He'd found a cushion somewhere to place under his knees. He was still, but his datapad sat in a cubby suspiciously close to him - closer than the rest of his folded clothes - and Vader suspected he'd put it down only when he heard Vader's breath and heavy steps drawing closer.

In one fluid Force-motion, Vader pushed him off his knees and to the ground, where he sprawled facedown. He locked Tarkin's limbs in place, everything motionless from the collarbones down. He left the neck free and was briefly amused by Tarkin's attempts to get into a comfortable position, turning his head awkwardly against the hard floor.

"There you are," Tarkin muttered. His willingness to use titles, apparently, had evaporated during the long wait.

"Has the wait displeased you?" Vader asked. Before there was time to answer, he pressed in with the Force a second time. He hadn't synchronized his senses with Tarkin's yet, and it was only long experience with Tarkin's body that made him confident he'd given the right amount of pain. An agonizing jolt, the largest that Tarkin could handle without a warmup, ran through him from his heels to the back of his skull. "You would prefer more personal attention?"

Tarkin responded, at first, with a grunt of pain, but he rallied quickly. "Yes, I rather would."

Vader began focusing, then. He started with the feet for a change, since those were closest to him. It was a simple routine, almost too simple for him now; he urgently wanted to _do_ something. So h e added further random jolts of pain. Up from the soles of the feet to the knees, and a jolt. Up to the hip joints, and another, even harder. Tarkin grunted louder, gritting his teeth.

"It was that bad for you, was it?" he said when he'd regained his ability to speak. "Should I be flattered?"

Every scrap of the docile deference from Vader's chambers was gone. Vader liked that, honestly. He liked the way Tarkin could rile him.

His Force-touch crept further up. The feel of Tarkin's cock, when Vader's senses reached it, nearly froze him in place. It was still mostly soft, pinned awkwardly under his hips, but it already felt different from Vader's. Always had. Always would.

Out of purest spite, Vader sent an extra jolt of pain through there, specifically.

Tarkin made a strangled, panicked sound. The next breath he drew was a breath of genuine concern. For Vader, oddly, more than for himself.

"It didn't hurt _that_ much, did it?" he asked, appalled.

"Not for me," Vader replied coldly. He stepped forward and prodded the small of Tarkin's back with his boot. His Force-touch kept crawling implacably up Tarkin's body. "But you will hurt more than this soon enough."

"Ngh. Good."

It took too much time to finish focusing. Vader was too angry to concentrate; his mind kept circling back to what he felt, what he wanted to do. What he wouldn't be _able_ to do, unless he could focus.

This happened sometimes, when Vader started a scene unsettled from therapy. The only way through it was to push. He drew on his anger, the Sith way, as he often did in battle or for interrogation. Let himself, just for the minute or two required, focus on Tarkin as a _target._

Vader knew his purpose now. He locked his senses in to Tarkin's back and chest, to his shoulders, his arms and hands, sending a few more spikes of pain as he went. By the time he'd reached Tarkin's face, Tarkin was already panting slightly, his heart rate accelerating from sheer intensity. Good.

Drawing on his anger made everything clearer. Vader had wanted to be a man, but he was a weapon. He could be used for pleasure, he was versatile that way, but he was useless unless he had a target. His reward would only ever be what he siphoned up secondhand.

Vader had always known that, ever since he first discovered Force sex. But it had seldom hurt as much as it did today.

With a flick of his hand, he levitated Tarkin up from the floor to pres backwards against him, upright. Vader wrapped one arm around Tarkin's chest and pressed the other up against his throat, not quite hard enough to restrict the breath. He'd been learning how to use his suited body to create this sort of effect. Tarkin liked it a great deal.

"Did you imagine," said Vader into his ear, "that I would be grateful? That I would _reward_ you, for being brave enough to touch me?"

Tarkin raised his eyebrows. "Do you mean to tell me that's not what you're doing?"

Vader shoved him forward onto the nearest work table. He slowed Tarkin's fall as usual, to avoid any injury. Tarkin's chest and belly pressed against the table's hard surface, his arms at his sides. His hips protruded over the edge, raised invitingly in the air, his thighs slightly apart.

"You will not enjoy this," Vader warned, which, given the way Tarkin's mind worked, was really an encouragement.

He had brought a pair of medical gloves and a vial of lubricant with him. It was the work of a moment to put one on. He felt Tarkin's anticipatory intake of breath. Grabbing the meat of Tarkin's hip with one hand, he slicked the other thumb and, with one motion, shoved it all the way inside.

The sudden intrusion burned, and Vader felt it. Tarkin could take more than this, of course - had taken more than this from Vader's own fingers before - but usually with much more warmup. He hissed in a breath of slight alarm. "Slower, Vader. We've talked about this."

Vader's voice was cold. "What makes you think I care if _you_ want it slow?"

Tarkin's tone subsided into amusement. "Nothing much, really, just the fact that we've done this a few times before. I know you won't get anything out of it if I don't."

Which was precisely what had made Vader so angry.

He worked his thumb roughly back and forth, dragging out a moan. It hurt steadily less with each motion. He didn't truly care about even this level of buildup today, but it bought him time to do the next thing, while Tarkin was distracted.

There was a reason why Vader had picked the workshop as opposed to some other room. The strap-on toy that Tarkin had given to him sat in one of the cubbyholes at the side of this room, untouched since the day it had arrived. He had placed it there for reasons he would have had trouble justifying aloud. Strange devices belonged in the workshop, that was all.

He'd never tried putting it on before, but it wasn't difficult to figure out. Without removing his thumb from its task, he levitated the toy to his feet, stepped into the straps, and raised and tightened it in place over his hips.

"What are you doing?" said Tarkin, craning his neck in a futile attempt to see. He'd heard the sounds of an item being summoned and of Vader shifting around behind him, but he wouldn't be able to identify the specific item based on sound. Vader hoped not, at least. Let him spend this moment wondering what he was in for.

Vader encouraged Tarkin back to silence with a particularly vicious twist of his hand.

He paused, then, to look down at himself.

The toy matched the black of his suit, as if it had grown spontaneously out of that material. It was at least approximately the size and shape of an erection. It was finely wrought, made out of an outer substance with just the right amount of fleshlike give, wrapped around an iron-hard core. It was textured with small ribs and grooves in a way that had less to do with human anatomy and more to do with creating sensation. There was a slight curve at its distal end, the better to stimulate a man from inside.

Vader was used to prosthetics, but this wasn't like his hands or his feet, complex devices attuned to his body's particular nerves, which moved in time with his impulses and dimly fed sensation back to him. This, however carefully crafted and suggestively shaped, was inert. It was an upgrade meant for only one person's pleasure, and Vader wasn't that person.

Vader would still enjoy the process, once he got going, once he made Tarkin's nerve endings begin to sing in the right ways. But Vader did not plan to make it_ easy._

He picked up the vial of lubricant again and spread it liberally over the toy. He could feel a nervous attentiveness in Tarkin's mind. Tarkin recognized the sound of a toy being prepared. He could deduce that, if Vader didn't want to tell him what toy he'd selected, it was probably something especially cruel.

"I am giving you nothing," Vader said, "but what you yourself have asked for. Remember that."

Secretly, somewhere deep below his anger, he felt shy. In some other universe, for some other Vader, this could have been a tender moment. He could have let Tarkin draw a hand leisurely along this toy's length, smile at it in anticipation, say something to make Vader feel it was really a part of him. It would have been an act of love, if Vader had let it happen that way, just like some of their other firsts. But Vader had been too afraid for that, too humiliated by the idea that he needed one of these in the first place. Sometimes the only way to reach for what he wanted was with anger like this, stripping away every other part of the act but its cruelty. Cruelty, at least, was familiar to him.

He withdrew his thumb, lined his hips up against Tarkin's, and thrust inside.

The sensation was so intense that he slowed, despite himself. He wanted to be rough and savage, but that would have to wait a few minutes. Tarkin made a guttural noise beneath him as the toy made room for itself. It had only gone a couple of inches in, but his body was barely ready. More pain than pleasure, despite the lubricant, but this was the good kind of pain once it slowed. Tarkin always liked having Vader inside him, and he'd never been picky about how he defined that, whether it was some part of Vader's body or the Force or a physical item under Vader's control.

"Careful, Vader," Tarkin chided, when he'd caught his breath.

Vader leaned down and wrapped a hand around the back of Tarkin's head. He hadn't bothered to take off the lubricated medical glove, and he carelessly smeared fluid into Tarkin's hair. "When have I ever been careful?"

He worked the toy further in, using his other hand to keep steady. Vader hadn't had to thrust his hips during sex in a long time, and he was clumsy with them now. The suit allowed him this sort of motion without harming himself, but it wasn't a motion he ever had to use in battle or in training. He didn't have as much control as he did with his hands. He wasn't sure how to get the angle right; he'd forgotten, when he planned this, that he would need to think about things like angles at all.

Tarkin felt it, though, and that was the important part. An entirely different sensation than the press of the Force: hungrier, angrier, impossible to ignore.

"Is that-" he started. He was still trying to crane his neck to look. "Is that the toy I gave you as a present? The one that offended you?"

"Of course it is," said Vader. He was vaguely aware that there was some contradiction in this, hiding the toy from Tarkin's view and feeling ashamed of it, yet not wanting it to be mistaken for anything else.

Tarkin gave another bitten-off groan as Vader forced the thing another half-inch deeper in. "I was - ah - planning to give you a small lesson about that one when you felt ready, Vader. It's not simply a matter of shoving it in somewhere, there's a progression to follow, there's technique-"

Vader planted his other hand down on the small of Tarkin's back and _leaned_, not enough weight to injure him, but just to hurt. There was only a little of the toy's length left, and he gave a thrust that pushed it all that way in, cutting off Tarkin's diatribe into a small strangled pain-sound.

"Have you forgotten," Vader said coldly, "what you are?"

He felt the roil of annoyance in Tarkin's mind. Tarkin sometimes liked being reduced to a toy. A vessel to carry sensations for Vader's choice of pleasure. He liked that when it was done for mere amusement. But he didn't like when Vader used it to try to shut him up. To distance himself from the deeper feelings that they both knew were there.

Vader didn't care if Tarkin liked it or not. He wanted Tarkin trapped underneath him, helpless against him, unable even to writhe as Vader filled him with a level of sensation he could barely stand. He wanted Tarkin to feel pleasure only at Vader's own whim.

His suited hips lay flush against Tarkin's now. He could feel the contact much more clearly through Tarkin's senses than his own. The base of the harness pressed up against Tarkin's skin, the hard metal of Vader's groin armor beneath it; the softer, rougher fabric that covered the front of Vader's thighs, brushing the backs of Tarkin's. He felt the toy itself through Tarkin's senses: the way his inner walls strained as they contracted around it. The hot, liquid, too-full feeling. And the hesitant flicker that told Vader he wasn't far from the prostate. The toy's odd shape might yet be put to good use, if he worked at that a little. If he allowed it.

He felt Tarkin smile against that feeling, slyly.

"The thing you want most," he said, "when you're most distressed? No, Vader. I haven't forgotten."

Vader raised the hand that was on Tarkin's back and slapped it back down against the meat of his hip, sending a burst of stinging Force-sensation after it.

"You gave this to me," said Vader. "It is mine. _You_ are mine. And I will use you both however I choose."

Tarkin's smirk widened. "Both of us? What, you're personifying it already?"

Vader made a violent motion with his hips, synchronized with another of those bursts from his hand. The guttural grunt of pain that he got in response was _most_ satisfying.

He could feel Tarkin's cock stir beneath him.

Vader absorbed himself for a minute or two in simply figuring out what he could do with his hips. His old self had known how to do something vaguely like this, but if any muscle memory remained, he wasn't aware of it. The strap-on couldn't seem to do much but rock back and forth at slightly different angles and speeds. It seemed inelegant compared to a hand, but there was something good about it too. It felt pleasingly raw and instinctive to reduce sex down to these motions, these shapes.

Tarkin could have let these sensations absorb his mind, if he wanted to. He could have focused on relaxing around Vader as Vader rutted into him. Tarkin needed to be spoken to, but sometimes that need eased when Vader tried something new. Sometimes merely watching Vader learn was enough. But Tarkin seemed not to want to make things easy today, any more than Vader did.

"You're overcompensating for something," he said, breathless with sensation. "Aren't you?"

Vader did not want to talk about his feelings. He wanted to work them out through rough sex and forget them. He slapped another jolt of pain into Tarkin's body.

"Further questions," he growled, "will be further punished."

He was still working his hips back and forth, experimenting with them, and by some ill coincidence it was in the next few seconds that he  found the exact correct way to thrust in. The one that hit squarely against the most deliciously sensitive nerves, that lit them all up. Tarkin hissed in a sharp breath, his eyes half-lidding.

"Yes," he breathed, "that's better, _yes._"

"How unfortunate for you," said Vader, "that I did not intend to make this _good._"

He pulled his hips partway back and slammed them in again, harder than before. This time he built to a rhythm, fast and savage. He wanted it to hurt, and it did. He wanted there to be bright, urgent, undeniable pleasure under the pain, and now that he'd gotten his bearings he could do that, too. Vader might not be accustomed to this motion, but he was, as Tarkin liked to point out, strong. He could keep this up as long as he needed to.

Tarkin liked this, too. He was fully hard, and Vader could feel his mind curling in against the sensation, welcoming it. But Tarkin's mind never restricted itself to _only_ that. "It's funny how often you say that when you're doing the best things."

Vader sent a spike of pain through his shoulders, down his arms. "I am not doing this for _you._"

"No, of course you aren't." His voice shook, as Vader's rhythm nearly threw off his ability to speak, interrupting himself with short gasps. But his tone was still, somehow, insouciant. Tarkin could be so _smug,_ Vader couldn't even stand it sometimes. "You didn't want to admit you needed a toy's help. And now you're so annoyed that you do, you can't help but make it - nngh - unpleasant. But you forgot that I'm a masochist. And that you _like_ pleasing me."

Vader twisted Tarkin's head around by his hair, ground his face into the table's surface. "If there is so much for you to criticize about this, I could stop. I could leave you here half-satisfied and still pinned down."

Tarkin hissed in an amused breath. "But then you'd be half-satisfied, too, and where would we be?"

Vader sped his rhythm even further, harder, making Tarkin wince with each thrust. "I can take more pain than you. I can make this worse. You could feel that you were dying, torn apart from the inside out, and I would still have my pleasure."

Tarkin ought to know that was true. In some of their early Force experiments, through carelessness or rage, Vader _had_ made Tarkin half-believe he was dying. Yet even this hadn't broken Tarkin's will. Tarkin was, in many ways, unbreakable. Sometimes that was frustrating beyond belief. Sometimes, when Vader feared the effects of his own strength, it was a secret relief.

Vader had twisted Tarkin's face so far to the side that when Tarkin opened one blue-gray eye to peer up at him, he could nearly make proper eye contact. "Then _do._"

Vader sent a new, worse burst of pain through Tarkin's body, a pain like lightning, searing and lingering. In that moment, he genuinely hated Tarkin. He should never have picked someone who could see through him like this. Every torment Vader put Tarkin through only made him feel stronger, more pleased with himself for surviving, and he wouldn't even_ fucking shut up_ about it. All Vader wanted was to hurt someone until he felt better, and Tarkin refused to be hurt the right way.

Tarkin let out a long groan through gritted teeth. When he spoke again, they were still agrit; he had to snarl ferally around them. Yet somehow, in that snarl, there was joy.

"Put whatever you need inside me, Vader," he gritted out. "You won't break me. You'll only be - giving me - ngh - what I want."

It was defiance, it was the _worst _defiance, and it was also -

Not.

Tarkin had gone into this knowing that Vader would be angry, and why, and what sort of things Vader did to his lovers when he was angry. Tarkin had undressed and knelt for him anyway, within the limits Tarkin's patience allowed. He had goaded him, deliberately, to be _angrier._

Maybe goading wasn't the same as fighting. Vader was a weapon, but maybe this wasn't a battle.

Tarkin wanted Vader, even at his worst. He liked to prove he was strong enough to take it all; that was what was in it for Tarkin. But maybe, when Tarkin talked back to him, it wasn't only that. Maybe it was also, in its perverse way, a gesture of welcome. Vader had needed to act out dismay at his own body, and Tarkin had deliberately provoked him to act it out harder. Tarkin wanted all of him, even this.

Vader felt something small and immaterial break inside him. Something tense, something that had _needed_ to break. He was still very angry, but it was as though a crack had opened up in his anger, and what flooded out from underneath it wasn't more anger, but love.

He made a small sound, something that his voice modulator transformed into a growl. He doubled over, his whole chest pressing close to Tarkin's back, and for a moment his rhythm faltered. The sensations of Tarkin's body hadn't noticeably changed in the last few seconds, but Vader's attention to them had shifted. There was pleasure and pain, and he wanted more of both. He wanted this to be good, after all. Wanted to ride it like a high.

He focused more on the toy's shape. On the particular nerve endings that liked it best as it pushed and brushed against them. Vader decided he would cheat a bit. With a moment's concentration, he brought in a new sensation. Just a slight additional pressure, soft and tingling, subtle enough that Tarkin might not even realize it was the Force; at this stage it might only feel like his own body drawing closer to its peak.

Then he drew his hand down along Tarkin's side and added a new pain, a burning like the one inside him but everywhere, pulsing under his skin, in time with the physical rhythm. He let that build as the pleasure built.

He could feel Tarkin's mental response immediately, even before it made itself audible, grunts and moans and incoherent profanity. Tarkin prided himself on keeping his head, and it was relatively uncommon that Vader could break his control of his words this way. It didn't mean his will was broken; he'd still be able to make decisions, to resist pressure, if Vader tried to play the scene that way. But it was a small victory, and Vader savored it.

Vader bent his head, as close as he could come with this stupid helmet on to murmuring in Tarkin's ear. "Scream for me."

It was delightful the way the pitch of Tarkin's voice rose immediately, even as he tried to stop it. Not a scream, but something in him had wanted to. Vader could feel him preparing to spit something back, to deny he ever would, but all that came out was, "I- _kriff-_ agh- fuck-"

Vader let that build for half a minute longer, paying attention to his rhythm, his timing. Until he was so close - it really was _him,_ in some abstract, borrowed sense - that he no longer wanted to wait. Tarkin's cock had dangled untouched between his thighs this entire time, but it was achingly hard, wet at the tip and very ready. Vader could feel that as clearly as Tarkin could. The pressure inside him only amplified it.

He reached down, not with his hands but with his Force-touch, and took hold of it. This was what having a cock was supposed to feel like, but Vader was too far gone to think about how unfair it was. He could feel it well enough, and he wanted it, consumingly.

Vader tightened his grip and gave a few rough, quick tugs, in time with his thrusts into Tarkin's body. He suspected it would not take many of these. Two. Three-

Tarkin actually screamed when he came. His body shuddered internally. He would have convulsed, there on the table, if not for Vader's Force-grip holding him firm. It was a release so intense that it seemed to come from the base of his spine, from the tips of his fingers, every part of him giving itself up at once.

Vader kept moving, fucking him through it. He slowed only gradually. He did not want this to end.

He could feel his own body, in the suit, sympathetically relax as the pleasure filled his mind. His own cock hadn't stirred throughout any of this, but some of the tension in his muscles eased, as was always the case after Force sex. Some of the usual pain ebbed. His anger drained away to nearly nothing.

Masochists had a kind of magic, Vader thought, that was entirely unrelated to the Force. Some part of Vader's own brokenness could be placed inside them. And, like a strange crucible, their senses would transmute it into something good. Something that could be relished, ridden upon, released. Something, despite all its ugliness and pain, that was worth loving.

At last both of them slowed to a stop, and Vader let go of his Force-hold on Tarkin above the waist. Tarkin's arms rolled out bonelessly to his sides, and he lay there, sweating and catching his breath, too enervated to try to get up yet. Vader liked the way Tarkin felt at times like these, the strangeness of a mind usually so sharp and quick, overwhelmed into stillness.

He moved to pull the toy out, and Tarkin blearily raised his head. "Slow. There's-"

Vader knew what he meant. They'd played with handheld penetrative toys of nearly this size before, though not so viciously. He pulled back gently and slowly, letting Tarkin's own inner muscles guide him out. The toy, when it emerged, was filthy, and Vader carefully Force-maneuvered it and its harness off of him. There were small bins at the side of the workshop for parts that needed cleanings, from overexposure to grease or rust or whatever other contaminants a machine might encounter, and he dropped it into one of those. Tarkin and the table were also a mess, spattered all over with sweat and come and lubricant. Vader would conscript an unlucky cleaning droid to deal with it as soon as they were done here. Tarkin would, no doubt, make a beeline for the shower.

They _weren't_ done here, though. Vader could feel that.

He let go of the rest of Tarkin's body, and Tarkin immediately slumped down. Vader Force-guided him forward slightly, so that he rested on his belly with his hips flush to the table, instead of crumpling to the floor. Vader took a few steps, so as to be beside Tarkin now instead of behind him, and he reached down to lightly stroke Tarkin's gray hair with a gloved hand.

"Thank you," he said - a phrase Vader rarely allowed himself, even for aftercare.

Tarkin grunted weakly and attempted to push himself up to sit. His arms were not yet coordinated enough, and he flopped back down to the table. "Where's that toy?" he muttered. "I've half a mind to take it back. You clearly can't be trusted with one." But he was smiling to himself.

Vader reluctantly began to disentangle his sense's from Tarkin's. "You have never needed to trust me."

Something about that sentence seemed to catch in Tarkin's mind, and he tried to push upright again. This time he got his arms underneath him properly, and he raised himself, wincing as this shifted the weight in his lower body. Pain from a physical source did not recede as quickly as Force pain, and the soreness inside him was going to linger a while. Vader held out an arm, and Tarkin caught on to it, dragging himself stubbornly further up.

He ended up half-collapsed in a pile against Vader's chestplate, and Vader wrapped both arms around him. Vader was getting better at aftercare, he thought. He knew better than to make any digs about blankets just now. But he liked the feeling, even suited, of Tarkin weak and vulnerable in his arms.

Tarkin rested his forehead against the unforgiving metal of Vader's shoulder, breathing deeply to steady himself. Judging from the feel of it, he needed quiet contact more than he needed further words. So Vader held him quietly, and looked out at the workshop with a speculative air.

He hadn't wanted to admit that he needed a prosthetic for this, but once he'd swallowed his pride and used it, it wasn't bad at all. He'd been embarrassed by the thought that Tarkin had gone to some market and picked one out for him - that it had to be designed according to what Tarkin wanted, not what would feel best for Vader.

But Vader was used to making things. This very room was proof. He'd seen the other kinds of toys Tarkin brought, from visit to visit, and most of them were simple enough. If Vader wanted to try a strap-on with a different shape next time, or a bigger one, or one with a tiny motor to make it vibrate or move...

He could already imagine the schematics. If he was willing to let this part of him be mechanical too, then the possibilities were _endless._

*

"Can I ask now how that felt?" Tarkin asked, later, as he finished up his lunch. After recovering his senses he'd rushed to his room and thoroughly showered, as Vader had predicted, and Vader had arranged for the cleaning of everything else. Now they were here. Tarkin was eating some kind of pasta Vader didn't recognize, but he seemed to enjoy it. Maybe someday soon he'd propose sharing Tarkin's senses while he ate, enjoying the tastes and textures secondhand. "Not the sex, but the therapy."

Vader shifted slightly in the chair next to him. These days, he shared meals with Tarkin about half the time. After everything else that had happened this morning, he felt self-conscious, and he'd decided to take his noontime medicines, nutrients, and fluids in private. But by the time he was finished with that, Tarkin still hadn't been done eating, so he'd wandered up to the dining hall, not quite wanting to sit alone.

"It was strange," said Vader, wondering how to explain.

"Bad strange? Good strange?" Tarkin took another bite and swallowed. When Vader still hadn't come up with a response, he looked rueful and tried again. "Did any of it feel good at all?"

"Yes," Vader admitted.

"But not much of it, I gather."

Vader wanted to fidget. He wanted a plate of perfectly inedible food in front of him, just so he could push it around his plate with one of the dining hall's silly forks and distract himself. He looked away. "That is not the issue. It felt very good. And it hurt more than being touched elsewhere. And it made me too aware of -"

He broke off.

Tarkin fixed his gaze on Vader, the wheels palpably turning in his mind. Vader was glad Tarkin was so good at this, piecing things together from context and from the limited amount Vader knew how to actually say. He didn't know what would have happened if he'd fallen for someone who wasn't clever that way. That person wouldn't have managed to get into a relationship with Vader in the first place, probably.

"Of your own limitations," Tarkin guessed. "You did seem a bit overwhelmed about that."

"Yes."

"Well." Tarkin had actual food and a knife and a fork; he _could_ fidget with his food. Vader watched out of the corner of his eye as he turned a forkful over a few times. "Is it something you think you'd want to do again?"

"I do not know," said Vader. "I want it. But I think it will always hurt like this. It will not be this bad every time, but it will always distress me. Is it fair to ask you for a thing like that, again and again?"

Tarkin put down his fork and smiled at Vader with genuine amusement. "I'm a sadist, remember?"

*

So that was all right, then.


	18. Epilogue, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which M4-R3K is awkward on the phone; Tarkin goes on a fabric-finding mission; cuddling in a bacta tank has both benefits and drawbacks; Vader has no idea how to pick out gifts; and both our villains begin to think about what kinds of commitment they're ready for.

Phase two of M4's therapy plan was partly about extinguishing the rest of the triggers: bringing everything down, ideally to green, or at least to the manageable kind of yellow. It was also time to branch out into more naturalistic interactions. Tarkin practiced gingerly wrapping his arms around Vader. Stroking his body affectionately over a larger area: all the way up and down his back, for instance. Or most of the way up and down, at least; that spot on his shoulder was still a slightly fractious orange.

Tarkin didn't know much about trauma therapy; he'd never needed it. He noted, though, that they were doing remarkably little in the way of actually discussing these traumas. That, M4 explained, was because of Palpatine. She'd made recommendations for full-fledged psychotherapy many times, and the Emperor had vetoed them all on religious grounds. Sith apprentices needed to be full of unresolved trauma for their training to work. The current program had squeaked by because of how specific it was. When they finished here, Vader would still use maladaptive, trauma-induced coping mechanisms in nearly every other area of life. He'd just be better at handling physical contact without killing anyone.

Sometimes Tarkin wondered what to do about that. He'd had some time, by now, to reflect on that vision from the Sith temple. He'd seen Vader's childhood self in chains: he could infer that Vader had been a slave or something similar, long past the age when most Jedi younglings were safe in the temple. That explained a lot, really, and then there was all the other subsequent trauma on top of it.

Tarkin wasn't in the habit of pity. Awful things happened to everyone, to a greater or lesser degree. The strong and worthy people of the world knew how to turn such experiences to their advantage. Tarkin had undergone his own ordeals, as a child, for the purposes of strength. To be pitied for that would be both insulting and absurd. He liked what he was.

But Tarkin had always thought of trauma as a binary. One could either be consumed by it or transcend it and grow stronger: those were the choices. Vader seemed to constantly do both at once. That combination had never made sense to Tarkin, except for that brief moment in the temple. He could no longer recall why it did.

He did not pity Vader very much, but he did want to ask about it sometimes. He wanted to take Vader's masked face tenderly in his hand and say, _Tell me about it. Tell me where you came from._

But he'd promised Vader he wouldn't.

_You will not pry further,_ Vader had insisted. _You will not treat my pain as a problem for you to solve._ And he had described it, not only as an issue of healthy boundaries or privacy, but of safety. No doubt Palpatine didn't want Vader confiding all the details of his traumas to a lover, any more than he wanted Vader talking them out in therapy. And when Palpatine was displeased, well, they both knew where that led.

Sometimes Tarkin wondered what would have happened if he'd said _yes, fire_ when the Sith temple offered. An absurd thing to wonder. He'd made his choice, and it had probably been a trap anyway. But sometimes he looked on as Vader went through the opening motions of training, or made some amusing bold move in one of their games, and he imagined the two of them, Emperor and consort, free from any command but their own.

Then he shook it off and refocused. Vader was with him in the present, in all of his dark deadly splendor, and Vader loved him. That was enough. It was fine.

*

At one point, while dealing with some very difficult paperwork related to the treaties with Hutt Space, Tarkin received a comm from M4. He blinked at the display; she'd never contacted him this way by herself before. Could something medical have gone wrong?

It was long after the end of standard work hours, and he was alone in his office. He patched her through.

"Hey, Governor Tarkin," said the hologram of M4 which appeared in miniature over his desk. "How's things?"

"The usual," he replied, masking his concern. "Busy, but under control. Everything's all right over there, I hope?"

"Oh, yeah, fine. Things are great. Better than expected, actually. That's why I called."

Tarkin rested his chin in his hand, puzzled but intrigued. "Go on."

"You remember I have permission from Lord Vader to share his medical details with you as I see fit, right?"

"Yes, I recall."

"So, I want to tell you something that happened years ago. When Lord Vader first started going out and meeting his play friends. He was real pleased with himself when he figured out he could still have some version of sex. I didn't know what to make of it at first, honestly. I thought it was weird. But I noticed something funny." She waved a metal hand awkwardly. "Turns out when someone's finding a reason to make endorphins and oxytocin-related peptides on a regular basis, a whole lot of things get better. His pain levels were lower overall and didn't spike as often. Injuries in the line of duty were healing faster. And I don't want to overstate this: he was still doing _terrible_. He's always been terrible, healthwise; that's why he needs a full-time droid. But once he started going out like that he became, in a statistically significant sense, less terrible. And that stuck."

"Go on," said Tarkin again. He thought he had some idea where this might be going. He wasn't very good at reading droids, but he had the impression M4 was embarrassed to discuss it.

"I wondered if skin contact might have an effect like that, too," said M4. "I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to get either of your hopes up. At first it just increased his stress levels. For, you know, all the obvious reasons. But, um..."

She paused again, and Tarkin realized abruptly why she was embarrassed. Tarkin and M4 had reached a workable truce for the purposes of therapy, but they'd never much liked each other. It was a hit to her pride to admit, now, that he'd helped accomplish something good.

"Well," she continued, rallying after a moment. "the health benefits of physical contact are pretty well known. Babies die without it. Adult humans are more resilient, but only up to a point. And now that we're over the hardest parts of the treatment plan, I'm starting to see those signs. Lowered cortisol and inflammatory markers, stabler autonomic nervous system functions, better serotonin, that kind of thing. And so I was, um, wondering." She looked up at him shyly. "If you could come over more often."

Tarkin made a face, flattered and regretful. In a perfect world he would have loved to do that, but his schedule was as it had always been. He didn't know what else he could fob off on a deputy that he hadn't already. At a certain point, delegation stopped saving time, because managing all the people to whom one had delegated one's tasks became a job of its own.

Maybe later, he thought. Project Stardust was close enough to completion that he'd begun to idly plan what he might do afterwards. Once the Death Star was operational, Palpatine planned to restructure the Empire's bureaucracy. Tarkin would be able to relocate to the Outer Rim and rule from there permanently. He'd have fewer lesser officials to wrangle, less red tape to hack through, and a more leisurely time making the actual decisions. When all that was done, maybe he _would_ have more time to spend with Vader. He hoped so.

If he dared to look further into the future - five or ten years, perhaps - then there was retirement to think of. He'd always assumed he would spend his twilight years back on Eriadu. But there was no reason why he actually had to. A different planet, or at least a visit to a different planet more than once every three weeks, would be... possible. Maybe. But Tarkin wasn't ready to think about that, much less to get anyone else's hopes up.

"I'm afraid I really can't," he said. "But perhaps there's another way to use these benefits to their fullest. Longer therapy sessions on the days when I'm there, for instance. Subject to Vader's approval."

"I'll think about it," said M4, and she hung up abruptly.

*

Which was how Tarkin ended up lying on the padded table at Vader's side, an arm casually wrapped around Vader's bare chest, as M4 said, "Okay, fifteen minutes."

He was fully clothed, so as to avoid the wrong sort of temptation. Vader was wearing the transparent breath mask. The color was green, so far, but Tarkin knew he had to be mindful of where he put his hands. The point wasn't to do anything new or fraught today, only to extend the duration of what had already worked. Still, he was pleased.

"You can't get away from me now," Tarkin murmured, leaning in. "Doctor's orders. There's no escape."

"What do you mean, _no escape?_" Vader grumbled, but he'd already wrapped his own arm tightly around Tarkin, holding him in place as firmly as any set of straps. "I could end you both if I chose."

Tarkin nuzzled into a safe place under Vader's collarbone. The breath mask presently stopped them from kissing on the mouth, but he could kiss other things. "Shall I take the fact you haven't as a vote of confidence, then?"

Vader's grip tightened, his artificially strong fingers sinking divots into Tarkin's skin. "_You_ are the one who cannot get away from _me._"

Tarkin was delighted with this. Vader was in his arms, pulling him closer, and-

Oh.

It wasn't a new thought, exactly. But he had not realized how deeply he meant it. Maybe he'd need to look more seriously into retirement plans involving Mustafar. Work would still dictate the rhythms of his time until then. But Vader was in his arms, and in some sense Tarkin truly did not ever intend to let go.

*

On the second night of the next visit, after sneaking around and debating the details with M4, Tarkin was able to present Vader with a small surprise.

"I've been thinking," he said, as Vader settled onto his back on the padded table. It was one of the weekends where M4 had detected something infectious in Tarkin's system - a virus so minor he didn't know the category for it, really, he'd thought he was merely a little tired this week - and made him wear the medical mask and gloves. He felt foolish in them, but they weren't going to stop him. "Instead of therapy tonight, would you like to do something a bit different? I've brought a little present that I thought you might enjoy."

"What is it?" Vader asked, with deep suspicion in his voice. Tarkin was pleased he didn't already know. He'd half expected that Vader would simply have read his mind, or watched the surveillance footage, and spoiled his own surprise.

Tarkin gestured to M4, who stepped forward in the chamber's shadows and brought forth the gift box. It was a rectangle about the size of a holobook. Inside lay a stack of short, thick ribbons, each cut from a different cloth. Fine Tyrian shimmersilk, fleecy Muunyak-wool, corded auropyle and velvet, silvery cerlin, Fleuréline weave, and more, each of the finest grade available.

"You see, I've been thinking," he said. "About how rarely you to get to enjoy being touched on your skin. Alhough there are obvious benefits to touching _me,_ you likely don't get many chances to touch other things, either. I thought we might broaden your sensory horizons, if you're interested."

"Give them to me," Vader said immediately.

They had to wait until M4 had gotten his suit partway off, but that happened quickly enough. Tarkin perched on the edge of the table and handed the ribbons to Vader one by one. At first Vader took each one and pressed it to his own skin; but as he became accustomed to the game, he began to allow Tarkin to do it. Plucking up a bit of fabric and trailing it lightly over Vader's chest, his neck, his cheek; watching with delight the faces Vader made in response. He explained the name and origin of each item as they went, but he didn't think Vader was listening closely.

M4 had examined each one of the box's contents before this, of course, and had carefully disinfected them all. It had required a secret meeting or two in Tarkin's guest room, on certain mornings, before Vader awoke. Tarkin hadn't wanted to restrict the experiment only to soft things; he was curious about a wider range of Vader's responses. Below the fine fabrics were an assortment of more daring options. Leathers, suedes, and furs, from the downiest to the most rugged; strips of rubber, polyvinyl, and latex; a ribbon of antique chainmail, carefully warmed; a small laminated flimsi; a seashell with a smoothly rippled surface; a fluffy little block of plastifoam. Vader's eyes lit up at the feel of some more than others, but each one he tried eagerly, with an open wonder in his face like that of a child.

Tarkin would have destroyed several important civilian cities, if need be, for the sake of seeing that facial expression on Vader a little longer. One day, Vader might grow sufficiently used to being seen unmasked that he'd learn to start modulating his expressions like a normal person. But Tarkin hoped not.

Not all the original options had made it past M4. The assortment of furs had been larger at first - Tarkin being rather fond of animal pelts himself - but she'd removed several on grounds of their being too difficult to sterilize. Pumice stone, denym, lace, and sackcloth had all been discarded, since their rough textures could actually harm Vader's skin. Tarkin had included a small strip of sandpaper mostly as a joke, and M4 hadn't even dignified that one with words, only held it between two clawed fingers and stared at him a full two seconds before unceremoniously tossing it in the trash.

It took a half-hour before Vader exhausted the box's supply of textures. Finding it empty, he blinked up unfocusedly at Tarkin, as if confused what to do next.

"You can keep all of these for personal use if you'd like," said Tarkin. "But here's a question. Out of all of them, what was your favorite?"

"All of them," said Vader.

Tarkin smiled, amused. "Say I was forcing you to pick just one."

This led to hemming and hawing and to many items being tried a second or third time. At last Vader settled on the shimmersilk, soft and smooth.

"Excellent," said Tarkin. "Thank you, Vader, that's good to know."

Vader narrowed his eyes. Perhaps reading Tarkin's mind; perhaps only picking up on the obvious. "You are planning something further."

"Wouldn't you like to know."

*

Therapy was progressing to the point where there weren't many serious problems left to work on. Physical contact would always be an intense thing for Vader, but he was steadily proving he could handle it.

This meant, in M4's opinion, that they were ready to talk about the other risks of unsuited sex. Tarkin sat, bemused, through several long schoolmarmish lectures on the peculiarities of Vader's body: the frailties in his spine that made it inadvisable to move much without the armor, the importance of not jostling each of his implanted devices, his proneness to choking, and so on. Tarkin allowed her to draw blood for an even more detailed series of disease tests.

She had certain questions that weren't covered a priori in her programming, and that therefore had to be handled experimentally. Mostly these related to how Vader's body handled the secondhand excitement of the sexual response cycle, and whether removing the suit would impact that. She shared Tarkin's earlier worry about Vader losing his breath, and there were also a number of subtler, metabolic concerns.

This led to a couple of extremely awkward evenings in which they skipped their usual evening sex so as to perform for her in Vader's private chambers like a pair of research specimens. Tarkin had to strip and put on several ungainly pieces of equipment, to monitor his heart rate and other vital signs, and to stand facing away from Vader at the other end of the room - not touching or making eye contact at all, lest that complicate the readings - while Vader focused on his senses in the usual way, and guided him through an extremely tame and vanilla round of Force sex.

This kind of medical humiliation was not Tarkin's kink at all, and he honestly wasn't sure his body would cooperate. But M4 was, at least, self-aware enough to keep quiet. And Vader knew how to touch him and speak to him the way he liked. It wasn't the sexiest sex Tarkin had ever had, but they managed.

It turned out that, in most ways, Vader's unsuited body handled things fairly well. The breath was the only real issue. Vader could handle the early parts of the encounter unmasked, but not the full process. After some badgering, M4 agreed to program his indicator panel to beep a warning at the appropriate time. That way at least they could kiss for a while at the beginning.

They were also starting to think about positions, and this led to Vader asking if it was safe to take Tarkin into the tank with him. Tarkin was dubious, but game to try; so he ended up wearing a breath mask of his own and an awkward, swim-trunk-like garment, nervously pressed upright against Vader as narrow space of the bacta tank began to fill around them both. It was warm, at least, like a relaxing bath, even if Tarkin didn't like its viscous texture creeping up his limbs.

Everything became oddly silent as the fluid levels rose past his face, above his ears. Bacta didn't carry sound as well as water, so the soft roar one would have expected underwater was so faint as to be nearly absent. He could hear Vader's breath, as those muscled ribs gently expanded and contracted against him, but it seemed far away. Tarkin's own breath, even masked, was softer.

Was this how things sounded to Vader, as he drifted off to sleep in here each night? Or did his hearing impairment make it different somehow? The silence made it easier to imagine that there was nothing outside this tank, nothing but the two of them suspended weightlessly in space. He could see dim outlines of the rest of the room, but they were easy to ignore.

Tarkin gingerly wrapped his arms all the way around Vader's body. M4 hadn't made them use the full, color-based protocol for this; the few remaining orange spots - at the ends of his stumps, for example - were easy enough to avoid. Still, Tarkin felt like being cautious. This was a physical thing he hadn't been able to do while Vader lay with his back against the table.

He liked the feeling of it, though. He hugged Vader close to him. His head fit perfectly into the crook of Vader's bare shoulder, so long as he was careful how he put it there; he didn't want the different breathing tubes, or the straps holding Vader up by his arms, to get tangled. He let his hands explore Vader's broad back.

Vader responded immediately, wriggling greedily against him. Oh; Tarkin hadn't expected that. Vader could move in the bacta, it seemed, a little more than when lying on a table. The medical apparatus in his torso poked against Tarkin uncomfortably, and Tarkin shifted slightly away only to be pressed back into place by the Force.

Vader couldn't, or chose not to, move his arms from their bonds; but his thighs shifted and clasped Tarkin's thighs between them. For someone who claimed his legs hurt him, Vader was _far_ too eager to use them in ways like this; Tarkin had noticed it before. But then, Vader had warned him that it would be like that; he'd ignore his own pain in favor of whatever brought the two of them closer. And Tarkin had agreed to let him make that choice, within M4's safety constraints. Besides, he _liked_ Vader's legs.

"Careful," he chided. "You've got some uneven edges, you know. You remember what Em-four said about jostling those, or about moving too much when your suit's off. Perhaps a different position-"

Vader only clutched him more tightly. Pressed his naked hips, greedily, against Tarkin's. One of the intake ports was definitely poking into Tarkin's ribs. Oh, well; at least Tarkin liked pain. He resigned himself to a few minutes of clumsy underwater mauling.

Aside from squirming away from the hardest edges, Tarkin's other instinct was to lean into Vader, to nibble at his neck perhaps. But of course the breath mask blocked any such action. He felt a new appreciation for why Vader hated having to wear one. Any movement of his head, when it came to that, posed a risk of getting equipment tangled. He could clutch at Vader's back and shoulders with his hands, but that was about all he could do.

Oh: except he could rove lower. He trailed a hand downward and grabbed Vader's ass. _That_ was satisfying. Vader rocked his hips forward in response. Tarkin could feel his own cock rising in his flimsy swim garment, oh dear. They were going to need M4 to break them up at this rate.

"Okay, you two," said M4, as if on cue. She flicked a switch, and there was a liquid sound as the tank began to drain itself again. "That's enough for a test run. Calm down."

Tarkin was relieved, honestly, when Vader let go of him. He still preferred the table to the tank. Drops of bacta still clung to his skin, and he was going to need an incredibly long shower to get rid of the smell. But he couldn't say he regretted the experiment. He found himself smiling, as the fluid drained entirely away, at the strange beauty of it all.

*

Vader knew there was a second part to Tarkin's plan with the different fabrics, but he was content to wait and let himself be surprised. He'd been ungracious with Tarkin's gifts before, more than once, and he wanted to do better.

He was rewarded some weeks later, when Tarkin waited until Vader was undressed on his table - as if Vader couldn't see his mind, as if he couldn't _tell_ Tarkin was prepared to spring something on him tonight - and then gestured to M4, who took out another gift box, smaller than the previous one.

"This won't take up the full session," said Tarkin casually, "but I had something made for you, if you'd like."

Vader Force-opened the box and drew out what was inside. It was a circular band of fabric, large enough to fit around the flesh of his upper arm, made out of the Tyrian shimmersilk he'd said he liked best. The shimmersilk in the original box had been plain white, but this one was dove-gray, Tarkin's own favorite color. Normally Vader thought of gray as a flat color, but the properties that gave the shimmersilk its name had made it slightly iridescent, like a pigeon's breast. Vader turned it in the air before him, admiring the way it flickered in the shadows of his quarters.

"This is something I used to do with Natasi," Tarkin explained. "She wanted a collar, but of course that wasn't practical under the circumstances. So I'd occasionally go out and find a garter, or some other small token she could secretly wear. I'm away from you more often than I'd like to be, and I'm not sure how soon that will change, but in the interim, I thought you might enjoy something tactile to remember me by."

Vader immediately pulled the band in with the Force and pressed it to his face. He had more and better nerves here than in his prosthetic hands. He had loved nearly all of the textures in Tarkin's experiment, all so different from what the suit normally allowed. But he loved the soft ones best. He was so rarely allowed any softness in his current life, and Tarkin had brought it to him in abundance.

It took him a moment to really parse what Tarkin had said. "You want me to... wear this?"

Tarkin was holding himself back in the way he did when he wanted something intensely, without knowing if Vader would feel the same way. "That's up to you. You can simply use its texture as you're doing now. But I've spoken to Em-four, and if you wanted to wear it inside your suit, that would be possible."

Vader swiveled to look at M4. "How?"

"Well, you can't just wear a regular armband inside your suit," M4 explained. "It would be too difficult to fix if it got twisted or something. But what I could do, if you wanted, is have it sewn into the lining of the suit's arm."

Vader had never thought of something like this. The idea fascinated him. He'd feel the soft silk and think of Tarkin every time he moved his arm. It would be like carrying a little piece of him into every battle.

"Will my master allow it?" he asked. Palpatine had designed Vader's suit, and he had final say in any alterations.

"Well," said M4, embarrassed. "Um. Nobody's _exactly_ run it by him yet. I can write something up about the cognitive benefits of varying your tactile stimuli, see if that works. It wouldn't even be a lie; there _are_ cognitive benefits. And he's allowed weirder things before."

"Try it," said Vader.

He could feel something else in Tarkin's mind. Some layer of sentiment running deeper than what he'd said aloud. Maybe he was remembering Admiral Daala. Maybe he was worried about Palpatine. Vader didn't care. They had fifteen more minutes of cuddling scheduled, and he had silk in Tarkin's colors that he could press against his skin whenever he wanted to, and he was happy.

*

"I should give him something," Vader mused, later, when Tarkin had gone back to Coruscant and M4 was swapping out his suit's life support for the tank's.

"Yeah?" she said, busy with something involving a set of oxygen tubes. "Why's that, Lord Vader?"

"He has given me several gifts." And each gift had been, in its own way, significant. The small puzzle Tarkin had presented him with on their first date, as a thank-you for Vader's hospitality, which had become a symbol far more potent than it deserved to be. The strap-on toy, which had now been put to good use more than once. The box of different textures, and the armband: the former delighted him exquisitely, and the latter had a meaning beyond mere delight. "But I have given him none in return. That is unfair."

"Makes sense." One of the tubes made an upsetting clicking noise; routine wear had begun to chip away at that one, and she was going to have to replace it. "What do you think you'll get him?"

Vader didn't know. The usual dating pleasantries - flowers, alcohol, confections - seemed inadequate at this point. What other sort of material things did Tarkin enjoy? Opera tickets? Strategy games? But he could already buy all those things for himself. Tarkin owned entire planets. What did one get for the Grand Moff who had everything?

"I could make him something," Vader said, uncertain. At least that way the gift would be personal. It would have to be a mechanical thing, since that was where Vader's skill set lay. "A... a boat."

He owed Tarkin a boat, after all. On Scarif, he'd disassembled a speedboat Tarkin liked and tried to replace its engine with a hoverboat engine, and then he'd gotten distracted halfway through and never returned. Making him a new one might serve as a good apology. Maybe.

"A boat, huh?" said M4. She was crashing around in the tank, disconnecting the oxygen tube that offended her and replacing it with a fresh one, and Vader had the feeling she was only half listening to him. "What kind of boat?"

"A good boat," said Vader, warming to the topic. "His current ones are useless. Mine would be fast and maneuverable. I could overclock the engine-"

He broke off abruptly. Vader liked to pilot small vehicles at ridiculous speeds; Tarkin did not. Tarkin barely spent time with his boats in the first place. Vader could make him the coolest boat ever and it would just sit moldering in the boathouse on his private island, unused.

"Not a boat," he amended. "I do not know."

He tried to think more practically. This armband was an article of clothing. Maybe he could buy Tarkin some small garment in return. But he drew a blank when trying to imagine what kind. If Tarkin had a favorite texture, then Vader didn't know it. There were places that sold lingerie for men, but Tarkin wasn't the kind of person who thought of his body that way. He didn't seem fond of accessories, or of undergarments besides the usual plain ones. He didn't even seem to like jewelry, aside from his rank insignia pin.

"I could buy him a garment like the armband," he said aloud; this wasn't M4's specialty, but maybe she could help him think it through. "But what kind?"

"Well, there's plenty of kinds. You could go the easy route and just get him a copy of yours. Or there are the standard options. Some people like cufflinks or nice chronos to carry around. Some people like scarves or gloves or belts." She was busying herself double-checking the connections to his breath mask. Vader couldn't read droid minds, but he thought he heard an exaggerated casualness creep into her voice, as if she were trying to get away with something. "Some people like rings."

Vader went so absolutely still that he thought he might have exited his own body.

_That_ was what this was about. Tarkin had compared the armband to a collar, and Vader had been around the kink community long enough to know how seriously some people took collars, how deep a commitment that was meant to be. Tarkin had mentioned the way that his work preoccupied him, and said _I'm not sure how soon that will change_ \- as if he'd already determined that someday it would. He'd looked at Vader with that strange extra undercurrent of emotion, as if the exchange meant something to him that he didn't want to directly voice.

Vader felt a humiliated rage boiling up, so immediate and so deep that even _he_ could tell it wasn't a proportionate reaction. Tarkin deserved to be murdered, maybe with an actual lightsaber. He'd made it look like he was offering one thing, a form of commitment that Vader could handle, and it was really another. A trap.

M4 cocked her head. "Too soon, Lord Vader, huh? That's okay. Forget I said anything."

"If he did this to fool me into compliance-" Vader rumbled.

"What?" Vader still couldn't feel M4's mind, but her tone sounded baffled and alarmed. "Governor Tarkin didn't do anything. I was making a joke, Lord Vader, that's all. Clearly a joke in poor taste. Are you okay?"

M4 had warned Vader that his therapy was only for dealing with physical contact, and it wouldn't improve any other part of Vader's life. But Vader had been practicing, for nearly a year now, how to recognize and deal with relationship-related triggers. He didn't even know what he'd flashed back to just now, but the signs were becoming familiar to him. Maybe his first assessment had been wrong. He hadn't felt any trickery in Tarkin's mind, after all, none of the secret devious glee that he so often felt from Palpatine.

He took a shallow breath, the best he could do without the mask attached.

"Remind me where I am," he ordered.

"Sure thing, Lord Vader. You're in your room in your fortress on Mustafar. That thing right up there is your bacta tank, see? Right now you're lying on your table so I can get you hooked up to your nighttime life support. That's where you are."

He took another breath, focusing on what was visible and physical around him. The black of his room, and the illuminated blur of the tank. The sound of M4 puttering around at his side. The table's padded surface underneath him.

Tarkin hadn't meant this as a proposal. Not in the _ha-ha, fooled you, we're engaged now, no take-backs_ way that Vader had briefly imagined. That would be unlike him. If Tarkin were ever to make a grand gesture of that sort, he'd want to make it _grand._

But Tarkin had been up to something. Of that, Vader was almost sure. It was just that it was probably a smaller thing. Testing the waters. Sewing an armband into his suit wasn't a thing Vader would do for just anyone. If he grew displeased with Tarkin, he'd have to expend at least moderate time and effort to get it un-sewn and back to the way it was before. It was a minor commitment compared to, say, marriage, but a commitment nonetheless, and Vader had agreed to it instantly.

Maybe Tarkin had given him this, intending for it to mean only itself. But also watching, in that careful way of his, for Vader's reaction. Tarkin knew how fraught certain topics were for Vader. If he _was_ thinking of asking for a major commitment, he'd start with something small like this. He'd work his way up.

And he'd give Vader three whole weeks of space between each step, as their schedule dictated, to process his feelings and think it over.

It was logical. It all made perfect sense. It still made Vader want to grab Tarkin by the throat and say, _you bastard._

And Tarkin, addressed in such a way, would likely only chuckle and agree.

*

Vadere was still thinking about it that night, as he floated in his tank. Long after M4 had finished her job, cleaned up, and left the Royal Guards to guard him. He was having trouble falling asleep: that was rare in the bacta tank, but it happened sometimes.

_Some people like rings,_ M4 had said. What if they _did_ work all the way up to that? Vader couldn't remember anymore why the idea had angered him. It wasn't like he wanted Tarkin ever to leave. Ever since Scarif, he'd known that he never wanted to lose this. That he'd go through any amount of suffering to hold on. And that was a whole galactic-standard year ago now.

Vader's old self had proposed marriage to Padmé less than a day after she first said aloud that she loved him. It was wartime, after all, and he'd been terrified she'd change her mind again. It was still wartime, of course. It had always been wartime, despite the Empire's insistence on order and peace. Maybe waiting a year was how normal people did things. He didn't know.

But Vader wasn't that naive little Jedi boy anymore. He knew marriage didn't stop people from leaving, or dying, or betraying each other. It wouldn't even solve any of the practical constraints that kept him and Tarkin apart. Tarkin couldn't administrate the Outer Rim from Mustafar. And Vader would be hard pressed to construct a facility sufficient for his own needs on any of the planets that worked for Tarkin.

Tarkin wasn't a very romantic person, Vader knew, but he was a traditionalist. He'd want a proper, public wedding for all his friends in politics and the military to look at. Vader didn't want a crowd of people looking at them that way. Whether they liked Tarkin or not - and in politics the safest bet was "not" - very few of those people would see it as anything but an offputting oddity. _Governor Tarkin is definitely fucking Lord Vader, they've got a standing date on Mustafar every three weeks, can you imagine? How does that work? I don't think Vader is even human_. Their relationship had never stopped being a minor scandal since it started. It wouldn't stop being one just because there were legal papers signed.

So there would be that embarrassment to deal with, and maybe if they were lucky a short honeymoon, and then everything would go back to the way that it already was. Assuming Palpatine even let it happen in the first place.

Vader wouldn't pursue this, he decided. He'd wear the armband, but he wouldn't find a matching one for Tarkin. He wouldn't get Tarkin a ring. If Tarkin pressed the issue, Vader would say a well-reasoned, well-justified, _no._

But secretly, in the privacy of his mind, maybe he'd think something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG shout-out to randomInternetWeirdo who pointed out the health benefits of bare-skin cuddling in a way that immediately made two entire scenes of this chapter pop into my head. And to liz_mo, who asked, allllll the way back in chapter 4 of "Holding Vader's Leash," if Tarkin could join Vader in the tank. I didn't forget! :D
> 
> Just one more chapter of this ridiculousness to go, phew. Hold on to your hats.


	19. Epilogue, part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vader finally gets the thing he wanted all along - and prepares himself to face his worst fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey reader friends! Gather round! I want to talk about endings. Except that would take thousands of words and more theoretical blathering than what properly belongs in an AO3 author's note, so really I just want to warn you a little for this one.
> 
> I don't truly consider this to be an Unhappy Ending, which is why I didn't tag it with that from the start. Nobody's going to die or break up in this chapter! My intent, if anything, is to show how deeply these two characters, despite their roller coaster of villainous dysfunction, have supported each other and helped each other grow.
> 
> But this is a canon-compliant fic series, and we've known from early on that both of them are destined for their separate, tragic, richly-deserved canon fates. And this ending, in addition to the smut and villain cuddles, is gonna take the dramatic irony inherent to that situation and turn it _all the way up._
> 
> If you don't enjoy that type of bittersweet ending in a villain romance, I totally get it. You have my full permission to skip this and pretend that the very fluffy chapter 18 is the real ending. Otherwise, here we go.
> 
> Oh, and if you needed the "content warning: sheev" in chapter 7, you're going to need it here too.

Palpatine seemed displeased, in the darkness of his throne room, as Vader knelt before him. Vader could feel it in the Force, the hate as cold as space, pulsing closer to his master's surface than normal.

"I summoned you here for a lesson, my friend," said Palpatine. "You know that, don't you?"

Vader kept his head bowed. "Yes, my master."

"Yet something distracts you." Palpatine sniffed the air, as if Vader's mind could be sensed through something as mundane as a scent. "I feel it. I cannot pinpoint its source, not yet."

He was playing games. They both knew what it was. Vader had been distracted by thoughts of Tarkin all year. When he was bored, or in pain, or afraid, and there was nothing else urgently taking up his focus, thoughts of Tarkin had become his favorite way to soothe himself. Palpatine's lessons were always intense, and once this one was underway, it would command Vader's full attention. They both knew that, too.

"It is nothing, my master," Vader said; the usual rote words. "I will attend."

Palpatine shrugged. "If you're sure. What I want to discuss with you today is the frailty of the body. You have been finding further use for yours, which is growth in a sense; it behooves a Sith to find new, creative means to accomplish one's goals. Yet a Sith must also remember that the body is crude matter which will sicken and decay, and which can be snuffed out by violence in a moment. It is only the strength of our anger that forestalls those inevitable fates. You know that better than most."

"I do, my master." That preamble meant there was pain coming. Maybe the kind of damage that lasted a few weeks, to remind Vader how easily he could lose what little health he had. Maybe subtler traps, to stir up the kind of sickened discontent Vader felt when he focused too hard on what his body looked like now. Palpatine had used all those things for lessons before. Vader braced himself.

Palpatine gestured lazily from his throne. "Get on your hands and knees, my friend; I want you closer to the floor. Crawl for me."

Vader was already on one knee, but he bent further forward and arranged himself as instructed. Spikes of pain spread through his limbs. Palpatine required these positions of him, of course, not only because they were debasing but because he knew they hurt. Vader let the pain flow through him, and the shame and anger with it. Vader's only consolation, when Palpatine required things like this, was that they were alone. No Royal Guard, officer, or lackey would ever see him crawling. Tarkin would never see it.

As he settled unwillingly on all fours, the strip of gray Tyrian shimmersilk brushed against his arm.

Palpatine suddenly sat up straighter. Vader stilled, uncertain; it was rare for anything to startle Palpatine like this. His master's face contorted. "What is _that?_"

"What is what, my master?"

"Your arm. Let me look at it." Palpatine stood and walked slowly toward Vader, his eyes narrowing, focused on the invisible spot below Vader's shoulder where the armband lay. Vader could feel his mind uncomfortably close, not probing but prodding, trying to work out what he hadn't immediately understood.

Vader was confused. He didn't understand what was giving his master difficulty. "That is merely the silk that Tarkin made for me. Do you not remember, my master? You approved it."

Palpatine wheeled toward him, and Vader realized his mistake. Trying to suggest that anything could be Palpatine's fault, apart from the useful results of the schemes that he carried out on purpose, was a losing game.

"I approved," he spat, "a request from your medical droid, regarding the addition of new textures into the interior of your suit for the purpose of sensory-cognitive enrichment. This is not that. _This_ is a memento of your lover for you to fondle. That little droid has become more creative than befits her station. I should wipe her memory and reprogram her."

Vader suppressed the urge to leap up from where he crouched on the floor, to try to throttle Palpatine with his physical hands. That would do no good here.

"Em-four phrased it that way on my orders," he said instead, fighting to control his tone of voice. "We did not intend to deceive you. Only to focus on the benefits that would most interest you, since you are bored by mere sentiment."

Palpatine advanced on him. "You treat me with such disrespect. I have gone to great lengths to accommodate your distractable heart. I have rearranged your entire work schedule so as to give you the time with Tarkin that you felt you needed. But even this is not enough for you. You will not be satisfied until you can carry your little love-toy with you every waking moment. You built something of his into your very armor so that, even in the rites most sacred to the two of us, in the very heart of the Sith, you could still distract yourself thinking of _him._"

Vader had an awful sinking feeling. He hadn't thought this through. When he'd agreed to wear the silk, he hadn't been thinking of this scenario. He'd imagined how nice it would feel to have it with him in more everyday circumstances: space battles, shuttle flights, boring conference calls. In his meditation chamber, while he dropped off to sleep.

But Vader's suit went everywhere he did. Even here. He should have known it would be too much.

He kept his gaze, with some difficulty, on the floor. "My apologies, master. If you do not permit me to wear this, I will have it removed."

"Yes, you will," Palpatine agreed, in a tone so diffident it almost didn't sound angry.

Then he snapped a hand forward and knocked Vader to the floor with a burst of blue lightning.

Vader lay on his side, reeling. Force lightning was not like other tortures. It was a discharge of energy born of purest hate, and it hurt in ways nothing else ever possibly could. It was even worse for Vader than for most people, because it was enough like real lightning to scramble his life-support circuits. This single blow had been enough to render him dizzy, seeing stars, his heart tachycardic and his breath stopping, until the charge grounded away and his suit's failsafes recalibrated themselves. More than two or three of these, or a single long sustained one, would kill him.

Palpatine wasn't going to kill him, of course.

"Love is useless," said Palpatine, standing over him. "A Sith apprentice stands alone, in the trials that matter most, with nothing to lean on but his own darkness. But if you wish to carry tokens of the men who own you, we can discuss that. I could make you one for the other arm. On Dathomir they weave a penitential fabric from the fibers of a certain tree's thorns, a fabric that strings the skin raw with each tiny movement. Would you like one of those?"

Vader tried to get up, but his control over his mechanical limbs hadn't returned yet. He only managed to rock a little. He hated Palpatine even more intensely than usual. If only there were some way to push his master away from him once and for all, to tear him asunder. But it would never happen. Vader was a malfunctioning machine doubled over on the floor, and Palpatine had no weaknesses.

_Really?_ said Tarkin's remembered voice, faintly and unexpectedly, in his mind. _No weaknesses like jealousy?_

Something teetered in Vader's mind at that memory. He was on the edge of some mental abyss, and whatever lay within it was _not safe._ Not a thought he could have in his master's presence, not even for a second.

So he slammed a mental barrier down around it. Pushed it to the back of his mind and returned to the present. Vader couldn't do anything in the present. He would uselessly rage. He would endure.

He had not regained breath to answer Palpatine's question, but Palpatine didn't ask again. He took a step closer to Vader's prostrate form, a malicious glint in his yellowed eyes.

"Now," he said, "about that lesson."

*

Two hours later, Vader stumbled out of the Emperor's throne room on shaky legs. He felt the Royal Guards' eyes on him, wary pity mixed with scorn. He needed a painkiller. He felt dizzy and ill, and somehow dirty, as if each small point of conduct which displeased his master was a physical fleck of grime. He could barely keep focused on his surroundings. He wanted to lie down. But not here. Not here.

He made it back to the _Executor_ in a nauseated haze. He probably choked a hapless officer who got in his way, or maybe he only thought about it. Back in his chambers, he fumbled in his medical supply boxes until he found the right painkiller to take, and shoved it unceremoniously into its port. Then he collapsed backwards into his meditation chamber and shut himself up tight. He let the machine take the parts of him it always took, and he closed his eyes inside his mask. He let the air go in and out of him. His breath equipment was working properly again, at least.

Things were a comforting dark blur for a while.

When he blinked back into something like consciousness, he was in less pain. He felt that the ship was deep in hyperspace. Coruscant, and the Emperor, were far behind him.

And now that the danger was not so present, now that he could not_ feel _his master watching, he could no longer avoid the treasonous thought unfurling in his head. The abyss was there, the black depth of a possibility he hadn't wanted to face, and he couldn't stop himself from sliding gradually down. Not here, in the silence of a chamber built to facilitate contemplation. There was nothing to stop him but fear, and on the tail end of his medicine haze, even that had been dulled.

Vader wanted to be rid of Palpatine. He had wanted that, more or less openly, for nineteen years; he could hardly deny it. Every Sith apprentice wanted to be rid of their master. Every Sith master, as far as Vader knew, was repulsive enough to make them want it. The problem was that the apprentice had to figure out _how._ Vader had long assumed it was impossible. Palpatine was too powerful.

But for a single moment, there on the floor, he'd seen Palpatine the way Tarkin saw him.

Not some magical, invulnerable, inevitable force. Just a man. A dangerous man, certainly, with great strength in the Force. A man worth fearing. But a human man, with his own weak points, his spots of inattention.

It wasn't only jealousy. Palpatine had been _surprised._ By something as simple as a droid's polite circumlocution. Palpatine was good at foreseeing things, yet he hadn't expected a threat from that direction. It shouldn't have been a threat anyway, and it wouldn't have felt like one, to a master less given to petty possessiveness.

It hurt to think about. How many times had Palpatine slipped up like this before? Vader suspected the answer was _many._ He had a feeling he'd seen it before, and then unseen it, wrapped it up in the back of his mind with the other things he didn't think about. Because Vader didn't know what to _do_ about this. He didn't know how to draw a map in his head from the weaknesses he saw to the outcome he wanted.

But Tarkin would know.

Tarkin had offered as much, a whole year ago, and it had taken effort for Vader to decline. He could have said _yes._ And he'd sensed that sometimes Tarkin still wished it had gone that way. He'd felt that wistful, half-buried regret in his mind more than once. Tarkin would say _yes,_ if Vader asked him now, if he asked the right way. Vader had more brute power in the Force than Palpatine; and Tarkin had nearly as much subtlety. Together they would be a match for him.

Vader could have asked at any time. He could have been free of this already. It was _vrajka;_ it hurt gut-deep the way _vrajka_ always did, and he could not pretend it away anymore. The two of them could do it. They could overthrow the Emperor. They could rule the galaxy together.

And he wanted it.

The risk would be immense. But Vader been practicing dealing with risk to his loved ones, hadn't he, for the whole year. Ever since their first awful date, Vader had practiced letting Tarkin choose what risks to take on. And as for the risk to himself, well, he was long past caring.

*

That day, as Tarkin wrapped up work for the evening, he received a call from the Imperial Palace. He maneuvered out of his chair and into a proper genuflection, and the system at his desk automatically patched the call through.

"Grand Moff Tarkin," said the Emperor, with something like satisfaction in his voice. He must be in a good mood, or else up to something. "Your work goes well, I hope."

"As well as ever, my lord. You received the memo I forwarded." He had dealt with dozens of different files today; the usual mix of irritating fires to put out, exciting projects to keep abreast of, and ordinary administrative matters. And there had been a brief, urgent memo from Krennic regarding Project Stardust: just when the project appeared to be ready for testing, they'd been mired by another slew of small setbacks, including a potentially serious security breach.

This project frustrated Tarkin, as ever. But he had a lot to look forward to. Tomorrow after resolving just one or two more things he'd get to have his visit with Vader. This would be a particularly memorable one, if things went well; they'd finally received clearance from M4 to try sex while Vader was out of the suit, and Vader was looking forward to it immensely. Then after that visit, if Krennic still hadn't gotten his business together, Tarkin would go to Jedha afterwards to sort things out personally. That too would be an activity to relish, in its way.

"I did," said Palpatine. "I thought to speak to you directly; Krennic's report has me somewhat concerned. Walk me through your plans for dealing with that."

Tarkin squared his shoulders. "Krennic assures me that the situation is under control, and the defecting pilot will be recaptured promptly. One can, of course, consider Krennic's track record at having things under control."

Palpatine smiled, amused. "Yes."

"My current plan was to allow him enough rope with which to hang himself. I had personal plans this weekend, as you know, and if I took Krennic at his word and followed them as planned, that would give his department four days to recover the traitor. If he fails to do so in that time, I'll pay a visit personally and take over the project myself. By all accounts the weapon should be ready for testing, and a successful demonstration would make any defection to the Rebellion irrelevant. Once the galaxy properly fears the Death Star's power, there will no longer be a Rebellion for anyone to defect to."

"A well reasoned plan," said Palpatine. "It might have been my own, had I not sensed certain things in the Force. But I'm afraid I can't give you four days. I can give you one night on Mustafar at most, and only if you leave for Jedha very promptly the next morning. Any longer, and I fear events may spiral out of our control."

"Understood, my lord," said Tarkin. He honestly wasn't upset. Palpatine would have been within his rights to make him cancel the whole visit. He'd still see Vader this way, and there'd be time for the activity Vader wanted most. And then...

Then Tarkin would be at the helm of the most fearsome weapon ever created. The one he'd dreamed about for all these long years.

That, or Krennic would deal with the problem on his own, which would also be fine. One way or another, they'd have their Death Star eventually.

"Krennic's performance has always been mediocre," said Palpatine. "With this last lapse of judgment from him, I've made up my mind. The Death Star is a battle station which will alter the course of galactic history. The honor of overseeing its first use rightly falls to you, not him, and we no longer have time for his vacillations. I want you to directly oversee the project yourself, from now until the Rebellion is destroyed at your hand. I'll ensure Deputy Moff Negba takes care of the Outer Rim in your absence."

Tarkin stood up even straighter, feeling a strange thrill. "Thank you, my lord. If you must know, I had already been seriously considering that course of action. It's always good to know I have your backing."

This was really happening, then. He'd waited so long.

"Indeed," said Palpatine, with a lazy smile. The smile of a predator whose prey was finally, nearly, in its grasp. "I have always appreciated the way you work for me, Wilhuff. Attend to this promptly as I have ordered, and you'll have nothing to fear from the Rebels. I have foreseen that the project will succeed."

*

The lava river raged in its usual course. The clouds roiled darkly as always. Vader waited in the anteroom for Tarkin's shuttle to arrive. If Vaneé or another servant had asked if he was anxious, he would have violently denied it.

He'd made his plans, but of course Vader wasn't very good at making plans, and of course things had gone awry immediately. Thanks to the constant irritance of the Death Star, they wouldn't have their long afternoon tomorrow in which to discuss what they needed to. Only this one night.

Vader had tried to adapt his plans to this news. He could still ask Tarkin to help him overthrow the Emperor. He would have to ask more compactly, that was all. He could ask immediately when Tarkin arrived. Or after they had sex. Or else he'd tell Tarkin on another visit. There would be more, after all. He had a bad feeling, but that was what Vader's mind always did, uselessly insisting that he was about to lose everything. Tarkin had been teaching him to trust that there would be more visits, and he'd nearly begun to believe it.

He shut his eyes and listened to his breath. Reached out with his mind for the comfort of his river below him. He'd been meditating a lot the past few days. Feeling the Dark Side flow through him, without Palpatine to mediate. Soon enough he wouldn't have Palpatine ever again.

The lava river did not try to reassure him. The lava river knew nothing was certain. The only thing to do in the face of uncertainty was to flow in the directions it could. To burn whatever stood in its way.

Finally Vader noticed Tarkin's shuttle descending. He felt it with his mind a few seconds before seeing the speck of it in the distance. The sun had begun to set, though on Mustafar the sun was rarely visible. Sunset was merely a particular quality to the light, a subtle reddish gloaming in the dark gray sky.

He waited in the doorway until the shuttle had settled on the landing block. The ramp cracked open and began to extend. He strode forward. The ramp clunked into place, and Tarkin walked down it with his usual small suitcase. They kept walking until they collided. Vader didn't care if a couple of bodyguards saw this part. He wrapped his arms around Tarkin tightly. Picked him up a little.

Tarkin returned the embrace with amusement. Tarkin felt... happy. Much of his excitement was about Vader, of course; they had a very important night planned. But over and above it was something else. Tarkin had been infatuated with the idea of the Death Star for so long. He might truly regret that this visit was cut short, but his other delights outweighed that feeling.

Vader tried not to resent it. Jealousy came naturally to him, but he'd spent long enough roving around the kink community to understand that it was basically useless. It was human and common; there was no point in trying not to feel it, but he wouldn't act out cruelly the way Palpatine did. He wouldn't let it spoil the night.

Besides, he loved how Tarkin's mind felt when it was like this. He could savor it a little longer. He would ask his question after the sex, not before, he decided. He wanted Tarkin's hands on his skin while he felt like this, before any larger fears got in the way. And Vader would have what he wanted.

*

They chatted about Project Stardust and the cargo pilot who'd defected. They talked about Vader's past three weeks, which weren't much, honestly. Just a few slapdash missions against the Rebels, who were an increasingly annoying problem, and whose main base still could not be found.

Vader waited while Tarkin put his luggage away and washed up, and while M4 gave him a final checkover in her usual fussy, thorough way. He focused on his lava river. The river did not exactly give him patience, but it helped him to stay in the moment, remembering that everything flowed in the way it was meant to.

When at last Tarkin made his way to Vader's second-floor quarters, he hadn't bothered to get dressed again. He wore only his silver-gray bathrobe and a pair of matching slippers, more understated than the fluffy pair that had embarrassed him a year ago. Vader was already lying down on his padded table.

"How are you feeling?" Tarkin asked, as he settled down on the bench at the side of the room.

"Impatient."

A keen, hungry expression crossed Tarkin's face. Not quite a smile. "Good."

Vader focused on that hunger as M4 undressed him. It was a good feeling, and it rarely lost focus. It only faltered once, as M4 unwrapped the suit's underlayer, which no longer bore any trace of the Tyrian shimmersilk. At that moment, Vader felt Tarkin's flutter of surprise and disappointment. Without his mask, he could not see Tarkin clearly from here; he suspected that the emotion had not reached Tarkin's face. But that never stopped Vader.

"Something troubles you," he said.

"It's nothing serious," Tarkin said, sounding abashed. "I thought you said the Emperor gave you permission to wear the silk, that's all."

"He changed his mind."

"Oh." Tarkin's mind briefly made a shape that Vader didn't like very much.

"Don't let it trouble you," said Vader. He swirled a teasing bit of Force sensation around Tarkin's body. Tarkin was more often the one who had to comfort Vader, but Vader liked that he could do it the other way sometimes. Tarkin had excellent emotional self-regulation - the equal of a Jedi, in his own cruel and unmagical way - so it was rarely very difficult to console him.

Before long M4 finished undressing Vader.

"Okay, you're all ready to go, Lord Vader. I'll just, um..." She looked back and forth between him and Tarkin, clearly flustered at not knowing the correct valediction for two people about to attempt this task. "I'll just. Be out. Somewhere else. Good luck, you two."

She trundled out, and Vader waited for the inner door to swish shut behind her. He had been worrying about M4 lately. Palpatine hadn't yet made good on his threat to reprogram her, but that wasn't to say he never would. All the more reason for Vader to make his move, as soon as he could.

He refocused on Tarkin, mirroring the hungry anticipation in Tarkin's mind. He let himself soak in it.

"Come here," said Vader, as the door closed.

They had agreed that they didn't need the full therapeutic protocol for this, but they'd had to plan in advance which acts they were going to do, and in what order, and what safety precautions they'd take with each one. That was necessary so M4 could approve them. And they'd agreed that the night would proceed only on Vader's orders. Vader was the one who would decide what he was ready for when. How fast to go between the different planned steps, or how slow.

Tarkin obediently stepped forward, bringing his hands to the belt of his robe.

"Leave that on," said Vader. "I want to remove it from you myself. You may dispense with the slippers."

Tarkin smiled slightly, amused. "As you wish, Lord Vader." He stepped out of his slippers and lined them up neatly beside the table, letting his bare feet kiss the warmed synthstone floor.

"Stand still," Vader instructed.

Tarkin did so, and Vader focused in on his senses in his usual way, from the crown of the head to the tips of the toes, taking his time. Soon enough he could feel Tarkin's body like a second body of his own. He could feel Tarkin's heartbeat. He could feel the floor under the soles of Tarkin's feet, the light softness of the bathrobe around him. And he could feel the longing in Tarkin's mind, all the sharper for knowing it was about to be fulfilled. There was no thought of the Death Star for Tarkin now. Only the sight of his strange lover, spread before him.

Vader beckoned. "Climb up here and kiss me."

Tarkin mounted the table with a practiced gesture, crouching above him. He bent close enough that the details of his face came into focus: the keen gaze, the narrow bones. Then he bent further, and his lips met Vader's.

They were practiced at it by now. Tarkin no longer kissed like it was an experiment, like he was afraid that his mouth might do damage. He was comfortable. He knew what Vader liked. But they had almost never kissed like _this_ before, with Vader feeling it from both sides. This time Vader had time to fully savor it, Tarkin's careful lips against his and his own eager mouth against Tarkin's. Tarkin's steady breath on his skin and his own weak gasps. The taste of them both. The way it felt for Tarkin's body to move, for goosebumps to rise on his wiry arms despite the heat, as Vader began to respond to him. Kissing Tarkin this way was a mirrored bliss, and Vader could have as much of it as he wanted. He could have it all the way to its natural end.

He came up for air briefly, delighted, reeling.

"You are mine," he murmured. "All mine."

"Yes, Vader." The look on Tarkin's face was nothing short of enthralled. "I'm yours."

Vader wrapped his arms around Tarkin's shoulders. He felt the way his fingers dug in through the robe. Vader's prosthetic hands were strong, and he knew how Tarkin liked that strength. He roved downward with those hands, stroking at Tarkin's back and sides until he reached the belt of the robe. He undid it with an easy motion and slid his hands inside, coaxing it off. This was another thing Vader had discovered during their year of experiments, how nice it was to undress Tarkin this way instead of doing it with the Force. He dropped the robe carelessly to the floor and pulled Tarkin in close.

He felt the warm air against Tarkin's bare skin now, the thick heavy texture of his gloves as they did their work. Tarkin was already half-hard. Vader gently turned his face with one hand so he could kiss the cheek and jaw. He felt Tarkin lean into him, knees bracing thighs. One hand exploring Vader's upper body, the other holding himself up.

Vader could lose himself in these sensations, the kind a healthy person might take for granted. All the little ways their bodies casually made contact, warm and soft and ready for the taking. This was what he had wanted ever since Scarif. If he'd had it when he wanted to, it would have destroyed them both. But he could have it now. He was ready.

"I have wanted this," he murmured into Tarkin's mouth, "for so long." He knew Tarkin wanted words, even now. He'd been practicing things to say. The truth, he'd decided, would be best.

He felt Tarkin's lips quirk against his in amusement. "I couldn't tell."

Vader let it draw out, losing track of the minutes. His face ached under Tarkin's attentions as they kissed and nuzzled hungrily. He let his hands rove slowly down, savoring every touchable bit of Tarkin's body. The shoulders, the spine, the chest, the divots of his narrow hips. Tarkin followed his lead. Vader could feel Tarkin's lust as vividly as his own, but Tarkin wouldn't allow himself to move any faster than Vader wanted.

"I can feel how you want me," Vader murmured, his gloved hand wrapping around the curve of Tarkin's narrow hip. "You ache for me. Don't you?"

"Of course," said Tarkin into the crook of Vader's jaw. And then, as had become his habit at certain times, he focused his desire. As he'd done the day he first saw Vader in the tank, holding his affection to the surface for Vader to see. He was clumsy at such things, not having a natural sense of minds, and it didn't have much effect this time. They were already necking and excited, after all; lust was already foremost in both minds, and there was only so much room to improve it. Still, it felt good, as much for the intent behind it as anything else.

Vader drew his hand langorously to the back of Tarkin's thigh, circling closer to where his cock stood hard and patient. "Tell me with your words."

Tarkin sighed out a breath against Vader's skin. "I've wanted this ever since Scarif. And what you've gone through to make it possible - it honors me. It's more than I dared imagine."

"You have gone through it, too," Vader said. The long, tedious, repetitive sessions; the flashbacks; the humiliating tests and inspections; even the time Vader had lost control and injured him. In some ways Tarkin hadn't suffered for this as much as Vader had, but in other ways he'd taken on a set of risks even more harrowing than Vader's. Vader would never have imagined, a year ago, that someone would choose to risk so much for him. It was part of what emboldened him now.

He drew his hand further inwards, trailing a finger along the length of Tarkin's shaft, from base to tip.

Tarkin drew in a breath at the contact. His nerves did what they always did, mentally glowing with delight, craving more. _Vader_ craved more. He was ready.

"Let me taste you," said Vader.

"Yes."

Vader raised Tarkin in the air with the Force and drew him up the table. He knelt, half-hovering, with his knees on either side of Vader's head.

They wouldn't be able to do this for long. Vader would need to put a mask on soon enough. But he'd wanted to try this ever since the _Overseer,_ a year ago. And even M4 had grudgingly agreed that it should be possible, probably, if he followed the rules.

He used the Force to position Tarkin just where he wanted, to spread his thighs wide, leaving plenty of room for air. He used his physical hand to move Tarkin's cock to an appropriate angle, bringing the side of the shaft up against his mouth. Langorously, he kissed at its surface, running his lips and the tip of his tongue along its length.

The sensation was very intense, less for its own sake - it felt _good,_ wet and gentle and teasing, but no more so than many other acts - but for its mental qualities. Some part of Tarkin had enjoyed this mental image even on the _Overseer,_ but he'd feared it was too dangerous. Now Vader felt his guilty, daring pleasure as he looked down at Vader's face beneath him. There was so much that could still go wrong, and for all Tarkin played at being the sensible one, it thrilled him to push these edges.

Vader was clumsy at first, as with all new acts, but feeling what Tarkin felt allowed him to learn quickly. He liked the taste of this. Tarkin had cleaned himself very thoroughly, but there was still a slight natural musk which was different from the taste of his mouth or his face. Vader so rarely had the opportunity to taste anything, and even this small newness delighted him.

Figuring out what else to do with his tongue, besides taste, was more of a challenge. Trying to stick it out too far felt wrong, brought him close to gagging; and of course he was absolutely forbidden to take any part of Tarkin inside him. He had to stay at the surface. He could manage little kitten-licks, as he roved up and down. His hands made a tolerable supplement, stroking lightly wherever his mouth couldn't reach.

Tarkin was already breathing hard. This was still just a warm-up, but Vader could feel how it thrilled him. He couldn't actually see Tarkin's face from here, but he _felt_ Tarkin's gaze drinking him in. "Force, just look at you."

Vader's lungs ached; he couldn't get enough air. The shallow breaths he was able to take unmasked, in the pressurized and oxygenated air of his quarters, were no longer a match for his excitement. Before long the warning alarm that M4 had designed would go off, and he'd have to mask himself and move on. But that only made him more determined to savor the minute or so he had left.

His shaky exhalations against Tarkin's skin were a sensation of their own, and Tarkin liked that, too. Vader felt his hands clench in suppressed pleasure. He _liked_ the way Vader liked this, even when it put them on the edge of danger.

Vader worked his way up to the tip of Tarkin's cock and let his tongue cross the head's pliant surface, taking in the tiny bead of liquid that had formed. He shivered involuntarily at how intense a taste that was, salty and sweet.

He wanted more, but that was when his indicator panel gave its warning beep. With a small noise of disappointment, he maneuvered Tarkin off of him and summoned his breath mask, which attached to him in its usual place with a click. It was soothing to feel the air going into him properly again. His shoulders relaxed at that feeling, but his mouth felt bereft. No more kissing or tonguing at anything until they were finished here. At least it was the transparent mask and not the one that covered his whole face. Tarkin could still see his eyes.

"Prepare me," he ordered.

"Of course," said Tarkin, and he pivoted to the shelf next to the table, where a large container of medical lubricant had been placed. He picked it up and poured some out onto his hand. "How are you feeling?"

The scripted check-in rankled at Vader. As if he needed to be handled like a fragile object just because his lungs needed help. In some sense, of course, he _was_ fragile; that was why it had taken them so long to work up to this. But Vader didn't want to dwell on that now.

"I want you to fuck me," Vader replied. "I have been waiting for it for a year. If you find reason for further delay, I will personally see to your murder."

He didn't mean the threat seriously, nor did Tarkin take it that way. "But then you'd never have me in the future. Think strategically. Unless your capacity for higher thought is compromised already?"

"I want you," Vader rasped, unable to think of a better comeback. He wished he had something to do besides lie still and wait. Vader had grown used to forms of sex in which nothing happened unless he did it himself. That was where all of his skills lay; he didn't know how to be receptive politely. Therapy didn't come with this urgency, this craving.

"I know," said Tarkin. Some part of him delighted in having reduced Vader already to this state.

There was a grain of truth in that jab about higher thought, but it wasn't only excitement. Vader rarely allowed his partners to move much during sex. The sheer amount of sensory information in two independently moving human bodies, only one of which he could predict or control, was challenging even for him. Processing the feeling of Tarkin's body walking around the table, fetching objects, took up a great deal of his mind.

Tarkin spread the lubricant generously along Vader's inner thighs. This was the same brand that was used on Vader for certain medical procedures. It was warm and gentle, infused with organic compounds which would help his skin repair itself should anything go wrong. Tarkin was liberal with it, ensuring that every surface he might rub against in the next few minutes was attended to and protected.

Vader liked the feeling of Tarkin's hands between his legs. But he abruptly felt afraid. He'd gone through enough therapy to recognize this feeling, the rest of his awful life intruding into an intimacy that ought to have been simple. Yellow. So many times someone had stood over him like this, with lubricant or disinfectant or a local anesthetic, with an ink pen to mark out the places to cut, or even Sith concoctions, carefully readying Vader for what had to be done. It usually wasn't anything he wanted or liked. Yellow shading into orange, maybe. He clutched with his hand, but Tarkin wasn't quite close enough to grab.

"Speak to me," he commanded aloud. "Tell me what you are about to do."

He felt Tarkin smile slightly, and he knew he'd picked the right command. Tarkin liked to speak, after all.

"I'm going to fuck you, Vader, just as you asked," said Tarkin. His voice was unruffled, but Vader could feel the tantalized lust behind it. Tarkin had wanted this as long as Vader; he could pretend at composure, but his nerves were equally on edge. Vader's own fear began to recede as he focused on that feeling. "I'm going to climb atop you and slide myself in between your legs, right here. You're going to be so wet and strong around me, and I'm going to take what I want from you until I'm satisfied. And I'm going to look you right in the face while I do it, did you know that? I'm going to watch every detail of how you come apart underneath me, because you can't help but feel pleasure when I do. You're going to-"

He broke off and suddenly swallowed, cutting off the forbidden words at the last moment. Vader heard them in his mind anyway. _You're going to be all mine._

But those words might not be forbidden much longer.

Vader wanted it so badly he thought he might break.

"Please," he heard himself say, and at that word, Tarkin nearly lost his own composure. Vader felt him mentally strain to refocus on the last bits of the lubricant, making sure he hadn't missed the smallest spot.

"But haven't you noticed," Tarkin answered, "we're far past the point where begging would have any effect. You hardly need convince me to take you when I already have you in my grasp."

He capped the bottle of lubricant and put it away, and then he climbed deftly back onto the table.

Vader clutched at him, pulled him closer with a painful grip. "In_ your_ grasp? You are in mine. And I am not given to patience."

"Then it's mutual."

He looked as though he was going to draw it out further, kiss Vader's chest and tease his way in, but Vader wasn't going to stand for that. He tugged Tarkin's hips down to him, roughly, clumsily, and felt Tarkin's cock slip in between his thighs.

It was like nothing else. Tarkin's body lit up with sheer animal pleasure. Vader felt it like a caress, smooth and easy, with no more pain yet than if Tarkin had clutched at his leg with a hand. This was as close to an actual penetrative act as Vader's stupid body would ever allow. But it was enough. His body's sensations matched what he felt through Tarkin's senses, a pure physical call and response. Every cautious movement of Tarkin's hips pressed him further in against Vader's skin. Every unthinking twitch of Vader leg muscles was a burst of erotic sensation for Tarkin, which Vader felt instantly, which only made them both want to move more. It was a feedback loop of pure pleasure. This was sex. This was what sex could be.

"Oh," said Tarkin, his eloquence briefly forgotten. He didn't have access to Vader's doubled senses; it must be something else for him, his sensations combined with what he saw on Vader's face. "Oh, that's - _oh._"

Vader flexed his thighs, squeezing in at him. Tarkin began to move in earnest, thrusting in a slow rhythm as Vader's body moved around him. He used a touch of the Force to prevent Tarkin from slipping out inadvertently, but it was Vader's own flesh giving the bulk of the pleasure, not the Force, not a toy or a glove. His legs were powerful, slick and tight as he pressed them together, and it didn't take long to figure out how to use them to the best effect. Nor was it long before Tarkin lost the will to hold back and sped his pace, growling low in his throat, rutting into Vader with undisguised greed.

"I'd tell you how good you feel," Tarkin said, breathless, tracing his way down Vader's abdomen with a hand as he worked. "I'd try to put words to it, but you already know, don't you?"

"Every detail," Vader assured him. His hands were still wrapped around Tarkin's shoulders, and he pressed and caressed with them, egging Tarkin on. He could feel the pleasure building so quickly; he didn't know if he wanted to slow it so it lasted longer, or to throw aside all inhibition and ride it faster and faster. Maybe both. Maybe he wanted something that didn't exist, maximum intensity forever, a high they'd never have to come down from.

Tarkin's hand worked all the way down, and without slackening his rhythm, he wrapped his slicked fingers around Vader's cock.

They'd talked about this beforehand, of course. They'd worked at this part of Vader's body more than once in therapy. It was always extremely intense. But there was such desire in it too, and Vader could tolerate the intensity, if he could release it soon afterwards with sex. They _were_ having sex now, and Vader had wanted this to be part of it. He wanted all the intensity. He wanted his body acknowledged as a thing that could feel pleasure, however imperfectly.

So he let Tarkin's fingers work up and down him now. He accepted the ache, worse than the ache of their other contact, and the terrible frustrated yearning that rose with it. It was good. It was a part of this. It fit.

It was almost too much to feel at once. Tarkin's movements and his own. Tarkin's pleasure and his own and the pain that went with them. Tarkin's emotions, fierce joy and desire rising near to its peak, and the way his own heart mirrored them. The effort, practiced and easy but still taking up mental space, of staying focused through Tarkin's senses. Every movement of Tarkin's hips was a jolt of pleasure, a burst of pressure against Vader's skin, a whole series of ephemeral aftershocks as they watched what they were doing to each other. Each squeeze and flex of Vader's legs around him was another both-sides rush of pleasure. Even the stroke of Tarkin's hand around him worked that way, in rhythm with the rest. Nothing was fully confined to one body. He could hardly keep track anymore of whose sensations were whose.

For a moment, experimentally, he stopped trying. There wasn't any need for distinction. They were a single creature, there on the table, moving ecstatically against itself.

Vader heard a series of soft, guttural sounds from a throat that must have been his own. A fierce panting in a set of healthy ribs that must have been Tarkin's. He moved his hand to cradle Tarkin's head, to tighten his fingers in the thin gray hair. Tarkin's own hand tightened around him.

Tarkin's face was blurred in Vader's vision, but he could feel it well enough, the delight that animated it from the inside. "Just like that, Vader," he whispered. Vader didn't know what he was talking about, the squeezing of his thighs or the hair-pulling or whatever else, but he was past caring. He kept doing everything he'd been doing. "Yes."

He felt Tarkin begin to focus more intently on his face, and something indefinable started to give way inside him. Somehow even without Force senses, Tarkin derived some visceral sense of Vader's feelings from looking at what his face did. Somehow Tarkin, too, was dimly aware of the feedback loop their senses made, the blending of both of them together.

Tarkin removed his hand from Vader's cock, using it instead to steady himself. His hips grew ragged, unsteady in their motions. Something in his limbs was beginning to shake.

"Vader-" he said.

The climax belonged to them both. It was like a ship exploding, a burst of light and heat that erased everything else from the world. A cry tore it way out of one throat or the other, maybe both. There was no room around them, no pain, no past or future. Only the beautiful thing that they both were.

When Vader could think again, when he blinked back into something like reality, Tarkin was still looking into his eyes.

He gradually sorted his senses out. It took a few seconds. They were a tangle of limbs; he could still feel everything in all of them. Vader's body hurt all over and Tarkin's did not, so that was one way to tell. Vader's pain was milder than its typical level; the endorphins of sex had done their usual, natural magic. His body felt as close to _good_ as it ever did. Warm, soft, satisfied.

Tarkin settled on his side, scooting upwards a bit so that he could rest his head on Vader's upper arm the way he liked. Vader couldn't turn over to properly spoon, and his chest with its various ports was too uneven to lie on, but they could cuddle well enough this way, with Tarkin's arm wrapped around him and a knee crossing over his thigh. Tarkin nuzzled into his shoulder, catching his breath.

"That was astounding," Tarkin murmured, his tone soft and dreamy. "I'm so glad we did that."

Vader made a small purr of agreement. It would be another few moments before he had words. He wrapped his arm around Tarkin and closed his eyes.

Tarkin stirred, though, after too short a time. "We're not finished here," he said in a somewhat steadier voice, "but Em-four will have my hide if I don't clean you." He pushed himself upright. Vader clutched at him in mild protest, but let him go. This had been part of the plan, too. The medical lubricant was safe for Vader's skin, and Tarkin's body fluids wouldn't kill him, but M4 hadn't wanted any mess to lie there congealing any longer than it had to.

A cleaning cloth had been left on the nearest shelf for this purpose, soaking in warm water mixed with a hint of bacta, and Tarkin picked it up, wringing out the excess moisture. He applied it to Vader's legs and groin with reverent care. The brush of the cloth was sensual and soothing, and Vader kept his eyes shut, enjoying it. His inner thighs had grown raw with friction despite the lubricant; he'd been warned that would probably happen, and he was beginning to feel it more keenly. Vader didn't enjoy receiving pain for its own sake, but he didn't mind this. It had been well worth it. His legs would hate him for it next time he had to kneel, but that was a problem for Vader's future self.

When he'd gently washed Vader, Tarkin paused to wipe off his own body and a bit of fluid that had leaked to the table's surface, then patted him dry with a hand towel. By the time he lay back down at Vader's side, everything was clean. Vader took off his breath mask - it was safe by now, surely - and pulled him into a soft, eager kiss.

"I love you," Tarkin murmured, when the kiss broke.

Vader wondered if it would ever not feel daring, verging on forbidden, to say those words. When Palpatine was gone, maybe they'd say them all the time, as banal as shop talk. Somehow Vader didn't mind that idea. "I love you," he repeated, still somewhat incoherent, emphasizing it with a possessive squeeze. "Mine."

Tarkin kissed him again, then settled back in to his former position, pressing warmly into Vader's side.

Vader wanted to stay like this. He couldn't, of course; eventually he'd need to sleep, and that would require M4 and the tank and the Royal Guards. And then Tarkin would have to leave so early the next morning to get to the Death Star.

Vader had two goals for this evening. They'd just done one of the two with great success, but they weren't finished. If Vader was going to do the second one, if he was going to make the request of Tarkin that had been on his mind for days, it had to be now, before the night and morning's other practicalities intruded. He'd have to break the afterglow for it. Tarkin looked so blissful there, and Vader would have to wake him from it, bring a whole new pile of worries down on his head.

Vader was a Sith Lord, murderer of thousands, the second most dangerous man in the galaxy. He still wasn't sure he had the strength.

Tarkin's eyes fluttered open as he felt Vader stir, and a thoughtful frown crossed his face. "What's wrong?"

Vader felt an odd pang of gratitude. Of course Tarkin would notice if he felt a conflict. Of course Tarkin would make this easy.

"There is something," he said, "that I have been meaning to ask you."

"Go on."

"Do you remember the mission to Hethea 1?"

Tarkin frowned more deeply. He could infer, of course, that this wasn't the main question. "Of course I remember. Goodness, that mission was awful. Though it also helped to set the rest of this into motion, so I can't say I entirely regret it."

Vader wrapped his arm more tightly around Tarkin's body. He was so nervous he could barely look Tarkin in the face. He would only have one chance at this question. He had to do it _right._

"There was an offer," Vader said, "that you made to me in the temple. I turned you down. I told you never to ask me again. Do you remember?"

He was still making himself look into Tarkin's eyes, so he didn't just feel, but _saw_ the mental wheels turn. The sudden solemnity that came over him as he realized what this was about.

"I recall," said Tarkin, his blue-gray eyes fixed on Vader's.

"I have changed my mind," said Vader.

Tarkin took a long breath. Vader was abruptly more afraid than ever. He had not planned far enough ahead. He had not realized there would be a moment like this, in which Tarkin understood what he was being asked, but had yet to decide what he thought of it. He had no idea what he was going to do if Tarkin said _no._

"I see," Tarkin said at last. His clever mind was working as hard as it could, trying to analyze this. "And you changed your mind just now? Or have you been thinking about this a while?"

"I decided days ago," said Vader.

"Do you... have a plan? Or are you asking me to help you make one?"

"The latter," said Vader, looking away. It shamed him more than he'd expected. Tarkin's facility with planning was why Vader needed him in the first place. That was one of Vader's shortcomings as a Sith, one of the things Palpatine liked to rub in his face. He didn't know what Tarkin must think of him, a mere helmeted monster, lacking any problem-solving ability other than brute terror and force.

But he didn't feel any contempt in Tarkin's mind, only careful concern. "Did anything in particular precipitate this change?"

"Nothing worth recounting," Vader said. "Only the usual."

Tarkin knew both him and Palpatine well enough to interpret that. His frown turned sorrowful. He seemed to wrestle with something mentally a moment longer, and then he looked downward. Neither of them could bear to look at each other right now, it seemed. "Vader, there's something I never told you about that temple."

"What?"

"When I was on the dais, about to fire the weapon against those pirates, the temple offered me an alternate target."

"I know," said Vader.

Tarkin blinked. "You know?"

"I had to substitute my life energy for yours only seconds later. That required a mental contact every bit as close as what we do for pleasure. I know what happened. I felt it in your mind."

Tarkin blinked again, struggling to assimilate this. There was a conflict in his mind that Vader could only partially decipher. "Do you know why I turned it down?"

Vader had not directly sensed this part, but he knew Tarkin well enough to make an educated guess. "Because you are loyal by nature. To the Emperor and to me. And I had already warned you not to interfere."

"True, but it wasn't just that." And Vader realized abruptly that one of the undercurrents of emotion in Tarkin's mind was shame. How strange, from a man normally so unapologetic in his ruthlessness. "While we were separated, the temple showed me a vision of sorts. Not a prediction of the future, only... a series of images. I believe the lesson was that I'm capable of hurting you as thoroughly as anything else in your life, even if I begin by intending the opposite. And when the temple put the Emperor in my crosshairs, I realized that you'd never be able to trust me again. You'd be Emperor if Palpatine fell, but because of our relationship, that would also put me in a position of influence, even greater than what my own efforts have brought me already. And I'd use that position for my own gain, even to your detriment. I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation, and you wouldn't be subtle enough to stop me. I know the sort of man I am. When there's power for the taking, I take it."

"Then take it," Vader whispered.

Tarkin turned his head and stared at him.

Vader had thought all this through long before Tarkin ever did. He'd often imagined what would happen if he slew his master and took his place, what allies he might find in the aftermath. It had used to feel safe to imagine because he believed it impossible, because he hadn't swallowed down that bit of _vrajka_ yet. He'd rejected the notion of bringing Tarkin to his side, because he knew Tarkin's hunger for power and where that would lead. But that was before Tarkin loved him.

Vader wanted power for himself; every Sith Lord did. He wanted to be Emperor if he could. But Vader wasn't always a very good Sith Lord, and deep down he wanted other things more. He wanted not to have a master. He wanted to be loved. He could cede mere political power in exchange for those things, if that was the choice that lay before him.

And if the worst did occur - if Tarkin ended up abusing his position as badly as Palpatine - well, Tarkin didn't have any Force powers. The second coup would be easier than the first.

"You would be a better Emperor," Vader said, turning back to face Tarkin. "You would _enjoy_ ruling. Committees and all."

"There is that," said Tarkin, but he said it faintly, as if it were the polite response to some unimaginably obscene joke. As if he couldn't believe he were saying it. He rallied, after a moment, and looked at Vader more carefully. "And what would you want in return?"

"To keep your attention," said Vader. "To be respected as your equal and provided for in the lifestyle to which I am accustomed. To fight for you only when I choose, and not when ordered. And the promise that, if I did form an opinion in some political matter, you would value it as highly as your own."

Vader didn't have much in the way of political opinions, but he had a vague feeling that, once he'd had some time without a master and could rest and think it over, one or two might appear. Something to do with slavery, maybe, but he wasn't sure. It wasn't like anyone else's efforts to eradicate that from the galaxy had ever worked before.

"Those are reasonable terms," said Tarkin. His mind churned under the surface, and Vader let it do so, trusting its efficiency. He couldn't feel each individual one of Tarkin's thoughts, but he could feel the undercurrents of emotion that drove them. The usual lust for power, and the long-suppressed desire to do something about Vader's problems. A certain tenderness, which was not only the afterglow: Vader's willingness to cede power had not only tempted Tarkin but also moved him somehow, more deeply than Vader had expected. Fear of failing; Tarkin was human enough to feel that, though he never let it stop him. Fear of Palpatine finding them out. Distaste at the thought of betraying his Imperial ideals. A large effort to work out whether and how a plan like this was even possible. And another fear, which Vader took a moment to identify.

Tarkin feared what Vader might do if Tarkin told him _no_.

Vader hadn't thought about that. It was obvious in retrospect why the fear was there. Tarkin was wise to fear it, but it wasn't the biggest fear in his mind. And Tarkin wasn't the sort of person who agreed to things just to avoid incurring anger. It was one of the reasons Vader liked him.

He watched until the different mental currents sorted themselves into something like order. Until he was sure, at last, of what Tarkin would decide. But he felt Tarkin hesitate a moment longer.

Vader wanted, foolishly, to move. To make an event of this. If it was allowed to him without his suit, he would have climbed off the table and gotten down on one knee. Not a genuflection, only a theatrical and solemn gesture, as if he were the kind of romantic who'd bought a ring after all. But he hadn't, of course. He didn't have anything to proffer but his own hand, mechanical and gloved.

So he proffered it, the one that wasn't already wrapped around Tarkin's body.

"Join me," he said. "My love. Rule the galaxy with me."

And Tarkin's expression resolved into a bold little smile. His hand, hesitantly, crept into Vader's.

"Yes," he said.

They stayed like that for a minute, staring at each other, both a little overwhelmed.

Vader was almost as unprepared for a _yes_ as he'd been for a _no._ He wasn't sure what to do now. They would need to make plans, of course, and what remained of this evening wasn't enough for that. With all of this Death Star business coming up, there was no telling when they'd have time to make them. Though Tarkin, of course, would be turning it over in his clever head the whole time.

Whatever plans they made and however they ended up going about it, there would be risk. A whole new level of it, worse than the kind of risk that Vader was accustomed to. Failure at a task like this would be much more unpleasant than death.

And success -

Life would become very different if they succeeded. Vader couldn't fully imagine it. It was almost easier to picture failing. What would he want, who would he be, without a master? He loved Tarkin, but their relationship was founded on playing with power. Success would mean a profound change in what power even meant for them both. He couldn't know what their love would look like, how much of it would survive, once the dust settled.

But he would be free. And Tarkin would rule the galaxy. They'd both have what they wanted most.

It was Tarkin's guile and patience, over the whole year and three quarters since their first little fling, that let Vader believe this was possible. Tarkin was the only reason Vader even knew he could be looked at with love. Let alone that his ash-pile of a heart could love in return. Tarkin had convinced him that Palpatine wasn't invincible. Vader knew those things now, and they were his to keep, whatever happened next. He didn't think even his master could take them away.

He drank in the sight of Tarkin's face, quietly steeling himself. Tarkin saw the change of expression and moved in to kiss him, soft and slow. When they parted again, there was something like wonder in his eyes.

"Why me?" Tarkin said. "There are thousands, Vader - surely you must know. So many people who'd worship at your feet if you asked. How was I the one you let in?"

"You let yourself in," Vader answered. "I could not have stopped you if I tried."

He was still tuned into Tarkin's senses, feeling the easy languor of his body, the places where they both pressed together, skin to skin. Tonight would be over soon enough, but first he was going to let himself feel everything he could. He had this now, whatever happened next.

For this one moment, he wasn't afraid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the "Playing With Fire" series.
> 
> Or the end of its main storyline, at least. I suspect I will return at some point sooner or later for little side stories. (I already owe several of you a silly "other Imperial officers gossiping about Vader and Tarkin's relationship" fic, so that will probably happen, at minimum.) But the series is now, in the ways that matter most to me, complete.
> 
> God. What can I even say about this series? It's been so important to me for over a year. It's helped pick me up out of a creative burnout and remind me what I like about writing. It's helped me process some difficult feelings and it's been a source of cheer to me when things were rough. It's been the bizarre niche obsession that I'm too embarrassed to mention in front of my IRL friends and yet it's kept me going on days when nothing else would.
> 
> If you've read this far, you have my thanks. I can only hope you've enjoyed the ride even a fraction as much as I have.
> 
> Since floating rock asked, here's my [Playing With Fire playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7GyLiXBXp1gUmJnRH5e3Et?si=QDrw90KPQiKoZX6sslkWhg)
> 
> Comments are, as always, love.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Strike Me Down; I Am Unarmed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110756) by [soulshrapnel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulshrapnel/pseuds/soulshrapnel)


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